OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 11 February 2003 — Israeli forces killed a Palestinian in the West Bank yesterday during what the army said was an attempt to capture him and shot dead another near a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip.
In other operations in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers detained three would-be Palestinian bombers and detonated a belt packed with 20 kg of explosives, the army said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees warned yesterday it will run out of resources to feed more than one million refugees by the end of March, and said it feared the looming war in Iraq would overshadow the needs of the Palestinian territories.
Peter Hansen, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), said in a statement that his organization’s “emergency programs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will run out of resources and come to an end by late March — including the feeding of 1.1 million people.”
He said that unless the international community stumped up promised cash immediately, the agency’s work would “grind to a halt.”
The agency has already cut back on rations to 120,000 refugee families in the Gaza Strip, he said, while 1,600 emergency staff in the West Bank had been laid off and payment for the hospitalization of refugees stopped.
Meanwhile, in the Gaza Strip, thousands of Palestinians marched in funeral processions for three members of the Islamic Jihad group who blew up their explosives-laden car next to an army post on Sunday, wounding four soldiers. (R)
