The vast majority of Gaza's 1.5 million population depends on aid after more than two years of Israeli nearly-total siege, a UN aid agency official said.

"The numbers are over 850,000. Up to almost one million refugees are depending now on us for food to survive," John Ging, operations director of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), told Xinhua in an interview at his office in Gaza city.

"There is no economy here, there are no jobs. People are just desperate both in terms of human and psychological suffering. That's the biggest and most challenging aspect of the siege," Ging added.

The closure, imposed since June 2007 and tightened after a three-week Israeli offensive that ended in January 2009, has added tens of thousands of non-refugees to the 750,000 registered refugees who receive aid from the UNRWA.

The embargo has forced the UNRWA to suspend US$97 million over the past two years in projects for the residents of the impoverished coastal strip.

"These are houses, schools, clinics, water and sanitation projects," Ging said.

"It's illegal to collectively impose sanction on an entire population," said Ging, who has been observing UNRWA's heath, education and relief operations for three years. "The consequences are dire humanitarian situation and huge amount of human suffering," he said.

In addition, the Israeli military operation has destroyed thousands of houses. Altogether 52,000 houses were affected, according to Ging. The blockade prevents the UNRWA rebuilding and repairing the houses after US$371 million were allocated for that project.

"There's been absolutely no reconstruction at all because there's no materials in Gaza for reconstruction; the crossing points are still closed," he said.

"The ordinary people are continuing to pay a huge humanitarian price for the political failure to find a solution to this impasse," he added.

Meanwhile, Ging said he and the UNRWA "haven't been informed yet" about an Israeli decision to pay in compensation for the damage of the UN premise during the war. He said the estimated damage exceeded US$10 million.

Ging called on the international community and the Palestinians "to re-double their efforts to get it (the siege) lifted," while blaming Israel as "the occupying power controlling the crossing points."

But he also said that the Palestinians have a responsibility too, urging Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party and the rival Islamic Hamas movement to reconcile and "find a mechanism to operate the crossing points."

Israel says it can't open the crossings as long as Hamas controls the Gaza Strip while Egypt still unable to broker an agreement between Hamas and Fatah to restore the political situation in Gaza to its pre-takeover position.

Israel only allows humanitarian aid and limited amounts of basic goods in. But Ging argues that "if a sack of flour can enter Gaza so can a bag of cement."

"If a crossing point can be open for a certain amount of supplies like food and medicine, then why can't construction material come in," he questioned.

In March, international donors pledged about US$4.7 billion to rebuild the Gaza Strip. The donors would transfer the cash only to the Palestinian National Authority which is based in the West Bank and can't operate in the Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Admitting that "all the pledges of billions of dollars were just words so far," Ging said that the focus should be on how to get that money urgently to the people "who desperately need it."

In other local development, Hamas' media has launched a campaign against the UNRWA in general and John Ging, the former Irish army officer, in particular.

The campaign focused their attacks on the summer camps program that Ging says up to 250,000 children are enrolled in. The UNRWA summer camps come at a time when Hamas opens its own religious summer camps.

Hamas' media says that some of the UNRWA programs encourage Gazans to adopt western lifestyle, but Ging defends that his 10,000 Palestinian staff are "providing the services for Palestinians as requested by Palestinians for their standards."

"The Palestinians tell us, the people of Gaza, the refugees of Gaza, they tell us what they want. They tell us how they would like it to be provided to them," he said.

He denied Israeli reports that he had fled Gaza for a certain time recently after receiving threats from Hamas. "Director of UNRWA operations doesn't run away from anything, never has and never will."

Some observers say that the recent Hamas' attacks against Ging is that representatives of Western countries that don't recognize Hamas find their resort at the UNRWA when they visit Gaza so they don't need to arrange their visits with Hamas.

But Ging said these countries pay "hundreds of millions of dollars to the UNRWA and those people come to see how their money is spent."

"They are also here to see the humanitarian situation of the people here in Gaza so they understand why they need to send more money to help the people -- It's not a political issue."

The UNRWA, established following the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict, is facing a fiscal crisis because "the amount of demand on UNRWA continues to increase but the money does not increase in keeping with the demands that have been placed on UNRWA," according to Ging.

"This means that we are not able to hire as many teachers as we need in our schools, as many doctors as we need in our clinics, and all the other supplies that we need here to keep pace with the demands that have been placed on us."

According to Ging, the financial shortfall is between 25 and 35percent of lacking in the funds actually needed.

(Xinhua News Agency July 30, 2009)