GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The United Nations has stopped distributing food to Palestinian refugees in Gaza because of the Israeli blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory.While the Canadian version, posted at 1:55 says that
Adnan Abu Hasna of the UN Relief Works Agency says the UN is taking the action because there is no fuel for its vehicles. He says all regular food operations have stopped and 700,000 Palestinians won't be getting basic food packets as a result.
Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza after Hamas seized control of the territory last summer in a battle with Fatah, it's western-backed rival.
Israeli authorities have shipped fuel for Gaza's power plant, but continues a ban on gasoline and diesel fuel....
There is some fuel stored in Gaza but a local strike by distributors means it is not reaching the public.
Palestinian distributors have been refusing to pick up about one million litres of fuel that Israel pumped earlier this month into the Palestinian side of a border fuel depot. They say the quantity is insufficient.
On Wednesday, UNRWA director John Ging acknowledged the "complicated fuel situation," but said Israel "must provide enough fuel for daily needs."
In Israel and the Occupied Territories, the UN has been forced to suspend aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency says it’s run out of fuel because of Israel’s blockade. The UN delivers aid to two-thirds of Gaza’s 1.4 million people. The top UN official in Gaza, John Ging, said Israel had ignored the agency’s warnings.
There was no immediate Israeli comment about the UNRWA move.
The Fox version, which has not time stamp includes this information:
The reporter has been excoriated by CAMERA since 2003 and by Palestine Media Watch in 2003 and by Omri Ceren, in 2007. The failure of the CBC to update the story makes me wonder how much of this criticism is fair and how much to blame on the MSM's failure to print the whole story. But I would have to do more research to be able to answer that question.Col. Nir Press of the Israeli military liaison unit with Gaza said Israel agreed to allow fuel shipments for the U.N. agency to keep its vehicles on the road, but Hamas stopped the delivery.
"We don't control the internal situation in Gaza between Hamas and UNWRA," he said. "I hope the Hamas will allow UNWRA access to the fuel we have supplied."
Press said Hamas is creating an artificial crisis. "It serves their propaganda purposes and creates a false pretense of a humanitarian crisis that doesn't exist," he told reporters in a group telephone interview.
