EU Takes Lead as Middle-East Peace Brokers Agree to Aid Palestinians

|PIC1|The three largest UK aid agencies in the occupied Palestinian territories urges the European Union to reconsider the freeze on direct aid to the Palestinian Authority, as the Quartet of major powers met in New York to discuss the Middle East peace process.

Save the Children UK, Christian Aid and Oxfam GB highlights the failure of Israel to transfer Palestinian tax revenues as reasons for the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation and breakdown in essential services.

While the United Nations estimates that three out of four Palestinians will be forced to live on less than £1.10, a quarter of all Palestinians are already at risk of hunger according to the World Food Programme. Half of Palestinians are expected to become unemployed in the same period.

During the meeting yesterday, the quartet of Middle East peace brokers agreed on a way to channel aid to the Palestinians for a trial period to ease a financial squeeze on the new government following the election of Hamas.

|AD|Speakers included Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of State, Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary General, Sergey Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister, Javier Solana, E.U. Foreign and Security Policy Chief, Ursula Plassnik, Austrian Foreign Minister, and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, European Commissioner for External Relations.

"The quartet expressed its willingness to endorse a temporary international mechanism that is limited in scope and duration, operates with full transparency and accountability," said the quartet statement.

"The thrust of the statement is that the international community is still trying to respond to the needs of the Palestinian people," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a news conference at the United Nations with other quartet members.

"It is to provide assistance to the Palestinian people so they do not suffer deprivation," she said.

The European Union will take the lead in working out the details but has suggested in the past that the World Bank could be a suitable vehicle for getting aid to the Palestinians.

Aid agencies urge the European Union that time is running out for the Palestinian people.