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US seeks to provoke mass starvation among Palestinians: Analyst

Thursday, 20 December 2018 10:13 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 20 December 2018 10:27 AM ]

A Palestinian man carries a sack of flour inside a United Nations compound after receiving food supplies at the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip on September 1, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

The UN World Food Programme’s (WFP) decision to cut food aid to the Gaza Strip has been influenced by Washington's drive to cause “mass starvation” among Palestinians, says an analyst.

“This is what comes of the Trump administration’s calculated policy of provoking mass starvation among the Palestinians especially in Gaza by cuts in the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and obviously that decision was taken conjointly with [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu,” Bruce Katz, co-president of Palestinian and Jewish Unity, told Press TV in an interview on Thursday.

“The fact is that Gaza has been under a criminal blockade for approximately 11 years and it has already been stated categorically that by 2020 Gaza would be unlivable. So what we are seeing here is a policy that basically is genocidal … It is a slow genocide, this is a crime against humanity,” he added.

The WFP says it would cut food aid to around 190,000 impoverished Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank - half of all its recipients there- due to funding shortages.

The UN food agency on Wednesday blamed the funding shortages on cuts by the United States, the agency's biggest contributor, and other nations in aid to Palestinians.

The cuts in food assistance will reportedly take place starting January 1.

The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli blockade since June 2007. The blockade has caused a decline in the standard of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.