The United Nations on Sunday announced an initiative to ramp up food distribution for embattled Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where a military offensive launched by Israel in response to Hamas rocket attacks entered its 16th day.
'Operation Lifeline Gaza', a World Food Programme (WFP) initiative, is aimed to provide ready-to-eat, culturally acceptable food to hundreds of thousands of people caught in the conflict.
"We are proposing an immediate, innovative solution to hunger in an unusually challenging situation, where many people are suffering from a complete breakdown in access to food and clean water," said WFP executive director Josette Sheeran.
"Even in the limited windows of opportunity when we can distribute food, we have to remember that many people lack the means to cook and prepare meals for their families," said Sheeran, who went to the Egyptian border with Gaza on Friday.
"We are in the business of feeding hungry people in difficult situations - in earthquake zones, droughts, or after Tsunamis - but Gaza presents one of the toughest challenges we have faced because access to the hungry is so limited," said Sheeran.
Sheeran announced Operation Lifeline Gaza after meeting on Saturday with the head of the Egyptian Red Crescent, Suzanne Mubarak, and the Egyptian minister of trade and industry, Rachid Mohamed Rachid.
The Egyptian government, which gathered a large number of companies in Cairo at the launch of the new initiative, has pledged to facilitate the proposal by offering assistance to businesses that can provide food to WFP.
WFP has made repeated appeals for a rapid expansion of humanitarian access to Gaza as its staff has continued working throughout the conflict, providing food assistance to more than 75,000 people despite the high levels of insecurity.
While WFP has sufficient food stocks to feed around 360,000 people for the next three weeks, the heavy fighting has limited the possibility of wide-scale distributions.
Many truck drivers and fork lift truck operators have been unwilling to work fearing for their safety and the civilian population is often too frightened to go to food distribution points.
