Eighty Percent of Gaza Households Earn Less Than a Dollar a Day
Humanitarian situation worse in 2006, says UN agency
BBSNews 2007-04-29 – JERUSALEM, (IRIN) — A recent United Nations report reveals that the humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) continued to deteriorate in the second half of last year, largely because of a collapsing economy.
Many Palestinians fell further into poverty. The Gaza Strip was the hardest hit with about 80 percent of households earning less than US $1 a day, twice the percentage of those earning that little in the West Bank.
Published by the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the report indicates that the international boycott on the Palestinian Authority (PA), coupled with Israel’s withholding of tax revenues destined for oPt had the harshest affects on the PA’s ability to offer basic services.
This situation is unlikely to change soon, not least as Louis Michel, the European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, said this week in Tel Aviv that Europe, formerly a major donor to the PA, will continue to bypass the PA and would not give the government direct aid.
“There will not be a change in the system,” he said. (…..Full Story Here)
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