UN appeals for end to Mideast stalemate amid Palestinian suffering

0 Comments | AFP, October, 2006

NABLUS, West Bank (AFP) — The UN relief agency in the cash-strapped Palestinian territories (UNWRA) appealed for a political solution to the stalemate in peace talks with Israel. With the impasse dragging on, UNRWA deputy head Fillipo Grandi said public services were on the verge of collapse, poverty was increasing under Israel's freeze of tax and customs duties and insecurity was on the rise.

"We sense increasingly a situation of despair, there's nowhere to go," he told EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who was visiting a school in Nablus, used by children from the Iskar refugee camp. "We are very concerned about the progressive deterioration, if not the complete collapse, of the PA (Palestinian Authority) education system at the primary level," he told the European...