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Palestinians facing crisis, UN warns

Palestinians face a grave humanitarian crisis if the substantial foreign funding to the Palestinian Authority remains frozen, the UN warned in a report released on Wednesday.

The UN warned that poverty in the Palestinian areas could reach as high as 75 percent without Western aid and the monthly transfer of tax revenue that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinian government. The aid and transfers were both suspended after Hamas won Jan. 25 Palestinian parliamentary elections.

David Shearer, head of the local UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the financial shortfall would hit the poor hardest and could spark further violence with armed Palestinian security officials taking the law into their own hands if their salaries were not paid.

The Palestinian government regularly ran a monthly deficit of US$45 million, but that has grown dramatically following the freezing of some US$30 million in monthly aid from Western donor nations.

Israel has also suspended about US$55 million in monthly transfers of tax duties collected on behalf of the Palestinians.

The Palestinian Authority has not yet been able to pay its employees their salaries for last month, which were due at the beginning of this month. These salaries sustain roughly one-third of the Palestinian population.

Several Muslim states pledged to give extra aid to the Palestinians, but it does not come close to making up for the aid cuts.

Some Western nations have attempted to bypass the Hamas-run government and deliver assistance directly to Palestinians, but Shearer said this would not be enough to prevent a crisis.

``What we are doing with this report is alerting donor countries and others of the humanitarian implications of the Palestinian Authority not receiving funding,'' he said.

``We can do what we can to keep people alive, but we can't take over the Palestinian ministries,'' Shearer said.
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