Media Adviser to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Adnan Abu Hasna revealed that the number of beneficiaries from the Gaza Strip who receive food aids from the organization on regular basis reached to million Palestinian refugees.

He added, in an interview with “Arabs Today”, that they have no plans to reduce the services offered by the organization to the Palestinian refugees living in the camps and areas of the Gaza Strip in the light of high rates of unemployment and poverty.

He stressed that the strip suffers from ten years of economic siege leading to undermining Gaza’s economy, saying that the sector records the highest rate of unemployment in all over the world. He added that they provide food aids to more than million refugees living in the strip, blaming the increasing poverty, unemployment and Israeli siege imposed against the residents.

He underlined the role performed by his organization to resolve the unemployment problem, saying that they managed to provide nearly 28 thousand job opportunities in 2016, saying that they performed a role to ease the challenge of unemployment by 5.6 percent.

He added that they also established three projects during last February, saying that they exert increasing efforts to rebuild the Gaza Strip. He added that thousands of families have no shelters since the recent Israeli attack on the besieged strip

He denied any intention to allow the Palestinian refugees to take food aids through electronic cards, saying that such proposal could not be implemented during the current siege imposed by the Israeli occupation. He called the donors for resuming their donations to the organization to be able to resume providing the services to the Palestinian refugees.

He warned of the current position witnessed in the Gaza Strip, describing it as serious. He stressed that Gaza suffers from high rate of poverty and unemployment. He underlined the increasing deficit witnessed in the organization’s budget, saying that such deficit could undermine the services that the organization offers.