Syria, Gaza in dire need of aid: WFP

UNITED NATIONS — The deputy executive director of the UN World Food Program, or WFP, has been on whirlwind visits to the Middle East and Sudan to assess dire humanitarian situations and escalating demands for food from millions of people trapped or fleeing conflicts.

But Carl Skau said in an interview with The Associated Press this week that the Rome-based agency has been forced to make major cuts to the number of people it can help because of a lack of funding.

WFP is working to diversify its funding, including targeting the private sector, but Skau said, "It's going to be a tough time ahead, no doubt, with increasing gaps."

"Needs continue to rise," he said.

Syria is facing the fallout from a 13-year civil war, the surge in arrivals from the recent Israel-Hezbollah conflict in neighboring Lebanon, and the opposition party ousting longtime leader Bashar al-Assad, Skau said. Even before this, he said 3 million people were acutely food insecure and very hungry. However, the agency was only providing food aid to 2 million because of funding cuts.

Now, Skau said, "It's a triple crisis, and the needs are going to be massive." While the situation in Aleppo, Syria's largest city, is "quite calm and orderly," he said there is still uncertainty in the capital, Damascus, where markets are disrupted, currency values have dropped, food prices are rising, and transport isn't working.

Amid international calls for stability in Syria, the interim government vowed to institute the "rule of law".

The Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, announced on Thursday that it has "severely damaged" Syria's air defenses, destroying more than 90 percent of identified strategic surface-to-air missile systems.

Not far from Syria, Skau says the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza is dire but he's equally worried about southern Gaza, "if not even more," because of the million or so people on the beach north of Khan Younis as winter approaches.

In northern areas, where the UN estimates there are still 65,000 Palestinians and no aid has arrived for more than two months, Skau said Israeli military operations, lawlessness and taking of food aid have prevented access to the needy.

He added, though, that some humanitarian convoys have gotten through to the broader northern area including Gaza City, where the UN estimates some 300,000 people are located.

In the latest developments on the battlefield, an Israeli strike killed at least 30 Palestinians and wounded 50 others who were sheltering in a post office in the central Gaza Strip, bringing the death toll on Thursday in the enclave to 66.

With no sign of a letup in the 14-month-old conflict, the strike hit a postal facility in the Nuseirat camp where displaced families had sought refuge, and also damaged several nearby houses, medics told Reuters. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Agencies Via Xinhua