Gaza, xx May 2014 -- The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is grateful to UN Messenger of Peace HRH Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, wife of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Ruler of Dubai, for her generous donation in support of food aid for Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip.

HRH Princess Haya's donation of US$ 553,800 comes in response to the Agency's Emergency Appeal for the West Bank and Gaza. The funding will enable UNRWA to provide 5,300 individuals from 976 families in the Khuza'a municipality of Khan Younis, Gaza, with food assistance for 12 months.

"In 2014, no mother should worry where the next meal will come from for her children. But politics has trapped too many Gazans in a world of poverty and hunger they cannot escape,” said HRH Princess Haya, who underlined that: "We all need to do more to end this pointless suffering."

Welcoming the donation, Pierre Krähenbühl, Commissioner-General of UNRWA, said: “This big-hearted personal contribution from HRH Princess Haya comes at a time of dire need for the Palestinian refugee families in Gaza. It shows her commitment to supporting the Palestinian refugees who live on less than a dollar a day in a particularly affected area near the border in Southern Gaza, where poverty levels are among the highest in the entire Gaza Strip.” He added: “I want to express my deep and sincere thanks to HRH Princess Haya, and hope that her kind gesture will be followed by other generous donors."

In Gaza, 56 per cent of refugee households are food insecure, while another 14 per cent are vulnerable to food insecurity. UNRWA aims to help some 790,000 food-insecure refugees meet their basic food requirements through direct distributions of emergency assistance. In total, some 1.2 million of the approximately 1.7 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip are Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA.

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