UN reduces food aid to Palestinians due to high prices, funding gap

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Rising prices and funding shortages have forced the United Nations to stop providing emergency food aid to more than 13 percent of the 750,000 Palestinian refugees it generally feeds in Gaza, a UN official said Friday. The United Nations' Relief Works Agency has over the last few weeks gradually reduced the number of Palestinian refugees to whom it distributes packages of basic foods to some 650,000, spokesman Matthias Burchard told The Associated Press. It has also had to further reduce rations, he said. "Soaring food prices, transport and fuel costs are forcing us to reduce what we can give," Burchard said.