No Food, Water in Gaza: Senior WFP Official

Tokyo, Nov. 9 (Jiji Press)--A senior official of the World Food Program has demanded that more relief goods be distributed to people in the Gaza Strip amid intensifying Israeli attacks in the Palestinian territory. 
 

In an interview with Jiji Press in Tokyo on Wednesday, Ute Klamert, WFP assistant executive director, said the situation Gaza citizens are facing is growing "more desperate by the day."
 

"There's no food, there's no water and there's no fuel," she stressed.
 

Pointing out that everything is in shortage in terms of the residents' basic needs, she called for more entry points for relief supplies besides the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza.
 

While the Israeli government says it will let humanitarian aid, such as food, water and medical supplies, be transported into Gaza from Egypt, only a limited number of trucks have actually passed through the Rafah checkpoint.
 

According to Klamert, the WFP has been bringing in not only wheat flour but bread, pasta, canned food and other ready-to-eat products at a time when baking bread is difficult due to a lack of energy.
 

But "the current volume of trucks now getting in is not nearly enough," she noted.
 

Speaking on the issue of soaring international commodity prices caused chiefly by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Klamert urged the Japanese government and civic groups to expand their financial assistance for the U.N. humanitarian agency's food aid to developing countries in Africa and the Middle East.
 

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