A Palestinian man receives cash as the United Nations begins to distribute cash aid, funded by the State of Qatar, to thousands of poor families, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, yesterday.
Gaza City: Qatar resumed its distribution of aid to Gaza yesterday for the first time since the May war between Israel and the territory’s Hamas rulers, this time through a new mechanism.
The Hamas-run government’s official news agency said the money is being disbursed through supermarkets, money exchange shops and other retail stores in a process that will continue over the coming days. The UN has said the funding amounts to $40m.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of Qatar Committee for Reconstruction of Gaza, Ambassador H E Mohammed Al Emadi said that the mechanism of Qatar aid distribution in Gaza Strip has always met the best international standards, and has been developed in consultation with the United Nations agencies and international partners.
In a statement to Qatar News Agency (QNA), Al Emadi underlined that the State of Qatar will continue providing aid with this same mechanism, as it stands up for the rights of the Palestinian people and continues supporting them through aid and developmental projects.
For years, Qatar’s aid to Gaza has been vital to providing for thousands of families and keeping the humanitarian situation from deteriorating in the besieged strip, HE Ambassador Al Emadi stressed.
Working with the UN, Qatar provided millions of dollars of aid for low income families and to keep electricity flowing to the Strip, he added. The aid is part of an informal truce brokered by Egypt and the UN in recent years in which Hamas has traded calm for the easing of a blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt when it seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007.
Before the most recent war, Qatari diplomats delivered millions of dollars through Israel’s Erez border crossing.
The Qatari aid went to some 100,000 needy families and to pay the salaries of civil servants in the Hamas-run government. The aid to the needy families has resumed, but there is not yet an agreement on the aid for Hamas’ government payroll.
In the wake of the Gaza war, the United States pledged to work with the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority to rebuild Gaza. But the PA, which has been confined to the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the Hamas takeover, withdrew from the aid agreement.
As a result, the UN announced on Monday that the Qatari funds would be distributed through the same mechanism its agencies use in the territory.
