Ashraf AboArafe
The UK’s International Development Minister, Anneliese Dodds, will attend the Gaza Humanitarian Response Support Conference in Cairo, to demonstrate the UK’s ongoing commitment to achieving stability in the region, and discuss how to urgently alleviate suffering in Gaza with key Egyptian, international and UN partners. She will announce more than $24 million of new funding for Gaza, bringing the UK’s total funding for the Occupied Palestinian Territories over the year to $126 million.
Egypt marks Minister Dodds’s first stop on her three-day visit to the region. In Cairo, she will meet with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and other international partners, to discuss ways to collaborate more closely to boost aid into Gaza, before visiting Jordan, the OPTs and Israel.
International Development Minister Anneliese Dodds said:
“The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. Millionsare in desperate need of food and shelter, with the onset of winter. The Cairo conference will be an opportunity to get leading voices in one room and put forward real-world solutions to the humanitarian crisis.
“The UK is committed to supporting the region’s most vulnerable communities, pledging additional funding for UNRWA, and to supporting the Palestinian Authority reforms.
“Israel must immediately act to ensure unimpeded aid access to Gaza. I will meet counterparts both in Israel and the OPTs to discuss the need to remove these impediments, bring about a ceasefire, free the hostages and find a lasting solution to the conflict.”
The newly announced funding will include $8.9 million in further support to UNRWA, which will bolster the core response in Gaza for shelter, food, healthcare and winterisation efforts, while providing an important expression of confidence in UNRWA’s essential role.
In addition, the UK has provided $7.6 million each to World Food Programme and the OCHA pooled humanitarian fund. The funding will go towards lifesaving health, food, water, sanitation, protection services and electronic food vouchers for Palestinians.
This comes only six weeks after the UK Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, Hamish Falconer’s visit to Al-Arish, in which he announced $1.2 million in UK assistance to the Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population, to support medically evacuated civilians from Gaza through the World Health Organisation. Minister Falconer also met with North Sinai’s Governor to discuss aid flows into Gaza and visited the Egyptian Red Crescent’s warehouse and Al-Arish General Hospital, to inspect how the UK funding to WHO Egypt will be used.
British Ambassador to Cairo, Gareth Bayley said:
“I would like to take this opportunity to thank Egypt for its steadfast commitment to humanitarian aid efforts in Gaza and for hosting this important conference. Egypt’s proactive approach in facilitating dialogue and aid into Gaza is vital not only for the immediate needs of those affected, but also to our shared goal of ending the war and bringing lasting stability to the region.”
The UK will continue to work with Egypt and other partners in support of sustainable peace in the Middle East.
