Military

DATE=11/03/00

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=W-F-P / PALESTINIANS (L-ONLY)

BYLINE=LISA SCHLEIN

DATELINE=GENEVA

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: International food aid officials say they are assessing the need of Palestinians following an appeal for immediate assistance to help those affected by Israel's closure of its borders with Gaza and the West Bank. Lisa Schlein has more from Geneva.

TEXT: The Palestinian Authorities' Ministry of Social Affairs is asking the United Nations for immediate food assistance for as many as 200-thousand families.

The new emergency food assistance will be provided by the U-N's World Food Program - or W-F-P - and UNRWA, the U-N Agency that cares for Palestinian refugees. Both agencies are currently assessing the food needs of the Palestinians.

W-F-P's Christiane Berthiaume says the agency's emergency operation will be assisting 300-thousand non-refugees for an initial period of three months.

///BERTHIAUME ACT///

Most of them are people who used to go and work daily in Israel. They have lost their jobs because they can not move anymore. Even within Gaza people can not move freely. So, many households do depend on employment in Israel.

They have lost their job because of that since late September.

///END ACT///

To start the emergency operation, Ms. Berthiaume says W-F-P is freeing 200-thousand U-S dollars to provide an initial 650 tons of food to 13-thousand families who are among the most vulnerable.

Ms. Berthiaume says the new assistance is in addition to an ongoing operation of food distribution for more than 100-thousand Palestinians who she says face special hardships.

///2ND BERTHIAUME ACT///

Those are people who we were feeding before the events and we are still doing that. Those are widows, women head of families as well as handicapped, old people and orphans in institutions.

///END ACT///

Ms. Berthiaume says food distributions in the Gaza Strip for 60-thousand of these special hardship cases are being completed.

However, because of security concerns, she says W-F-P so far has not been able to get access to two areas in the West Bank to complete food distribution for another 40-thousand people. She says this operation is badly under funded. She says she hopes that the international community will be more generous when the U-N appeals for money sometime next week for its new emergency operation. (Signed)

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