UN agencies concerned at worsening food insecurity among Palestinians

Two UN aid agencies on Friday expressed their concern over the deepening food insecurity in the West Bank and Gaza, where one in three Palestinian households now struggle to feed their families, a UN spokesman said here. The alarm over the deteriorating situation was raised by the heads of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees ( UNRWA) and the World Food Program (WFP), after they visited a Bedouin village between Jerusalem and Jericho on Friday where a food distribution carried out jointly by the two agencies was taking place, the deputy UN spokesman Eduardo del Buey told reporters at a daily news briefing. A total of 1.6 million people, or 34 percent of households in Palestine, were food insecure in 2012, a dramatic rise from 27 percent in 2011, according to a joint UN survey carried out by the WFP, the UNRWA, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. Contributing factors include high unemployment rates, stagnant economic growth, the financial problems of the Palestinian Authority, the continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza, the spokesman said.