384 million dollars to avoid collapse in the Palestinian Territories. This is the money needed according to the UN and non-governmental organisations to pay the workers’ wages and ensure food and medication to the population. In a release issued yesterday and re-launched today by Caritas Jerusalem, the UN and NGOs have upped their estimate of the Palestinians’ humanitarian needs (80% more): from 215 to 384 million dollars. "We had to revise our requests states David Shearer, head of the UN Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to ensure better assistance to the more vulnerable Palestinians, especially children who make up about one half the population". The Wfp, the World Food Program, warns that it cannot fulfil the daily requests for food, while the other agencies state that such services as health and education are dwindling day by day. "In the Gaza Strip states Karen Koning Abduzay, General Commissioner at Unrwa, the UN Palestinian Refugees’ Agency there are 100 thousand refugees queuing up for a job, which is 600% more in demand now than in April 2005". As everybody knows, the deterioration of the living conditions of the Palestinian population is also due to the donor countries’ decision to temporarily stop financial aids after Hamas’ victory and Israel’s decision to freeze tax transfers and customs levies to Palestinians (about 45 million euros per month). In the last few days, the Jerusalem branch of Caritas launched the "Special operations appeal" solidarity campaign (Soa) (visit www.caritas.org).
