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UNRWA commissioner warns of mounting humanitarian crisis in Gaza

Xinhua, February 2, 2017 Adjust font size:

The Commissioner General of the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) Pierre Krähenbühl warned on Wednesday of the mounting humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

Krähenbühl told a news briefing in Gaza that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is mounting due to the severe shortage of basic services in the Gaza Strip that has been under an Israeli blockade for around 10 years.

"The Israeli blockade causes big loss in the local sectors, mainly economic, social and psychological," he said, adding that "this needs a necessity to be aware to the dangerous living and psychological situations for Gaza populations."

The Gaza Strip, the 36-square kilometer narrow coastal enclave with a population of two million people, has been under a tight Israeli blockade imposed right after Islamic Hamas movement had violently seized control of it in 2007.

Krähenbühl said the Gaza Strip populations suffer from a severe water crisis, and warned that in 2020 no one knows if this water would be fitting for human use or not. He also warned of high rates of poverty and unemployment in the enclave.

The UN senior official called on Israel to lift the blockade "because most of the crises that the Gaza Strip is passing through are due to this blockade that had been imposed on the enclave for 10 years."

He announced that he will stay in Gaza for around one week "to closely look at the situation as well as to the social, psychological and economical problems the populations are suffering from." Endit