The Black Horseman

‘World has never seen such a rapid increase in hunger,’ WFP regional director Corinne Fleischer tells Arab News

Updated 28 April 2024 NADIA AL-FAOUR April 27, 202422:19

DUBAI: With budgets squeezed by rising prices and limited donations, humanitarian agencies are struggling to respond to the world’s multiple, overlapping crises, contributing to a rise in malnutrition, a top aid official has warned. Corinne Fleischer, the World Food Programme’s regional director for the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe, said that her agency had been forced to reduce its assistance to communities in several crisis contexts.

“This is due to conflicts, the impact of COVID-19, and the impact the Ukraine war has on food prices.” “Hunger is going up and governments are now looking at their own economies and needs. “The humanitarian system is really challenged. It is a dramatic situation.”

https://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/pictures/April/20/2024/p3_corinne.jpg

Fleischer, who recently held a meeting in Egypt with Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, supervisor-general of the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSrelief), said that WFP was very pleased to have strengthened its relationship with the Saudi aid agency. “We signed an agreement where KSrelief will provide $10 million for our operations in Ukraine, $5 million for Palestine, $4.85 million to Yemen, and $1.4 million for Sudan and South Sudan,” she said. “The focus of these contributions is of course saving lives and providing nutrition with a focus on mothers, pregnant and nursing mothers and young children under two.”

This additional financial assistance could prove lifesaving for the population of Gaza, which has endured months under Israeli siege. More than six months after Israel launched its military offensive and placed tight restrictions on the flow of commercial goods and humanitarian aid permitted to enter the Palestinian enclave, the population has been brought to the brink of famine. “I have never seen, even the world has never seen, such a rapid increase in hunger, where now 50 percent of the population is starving,” Fleischer said.

https://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/pictures/April/20/2024/gr_food_crisis.jpg

According to WFP figures, 0.8 percent of Gazan children were categorized as malnourished prior to the war. Just three months into the conflict, that number rose to 15 percent. A further two months later, it rose to 30 percent. “From the beginning, we knew where the conflict might go, so we made sure we have enough food at the borders for 2.2 million people to be able to move in as soon as we can,” Fleischer said. Although WFP continues to bring aid deliveries into Gaza, the number of trucks allowed in is far too limited to meet the needs of the stricken population. Some 500 trucks were entering the enclave prior to the war. Now barely 100 are permitted to enter — at a time when needs are at their greatest.

“We use the Rafah corridor, the Jordan corridor, which we’ve also set up, but the aid from there goes through Kerem Shalom and this is where the choke point is,” Fleischer said. Kerem Shalom, which used to be the main commercial crossing between Israel and Gaza, has been repeatedly blocked by Israeli protesters demanding the release of hostages.

https://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/pictures/April/20/2024/gr_gaza_aid.jpg

WFP has called on Israel to open more crossing points and is now able to go through the Erez Crossing. According to Fleischer, this has allowed aid agencies to access communities in the north of Gaza, where famine is taking hold. “We managed in the last month to bring food for about 350,000 people,” she said. “That is not enough for a whole month, but it’s a start.” Fleischer said that it was a good sign that they were now able to use other road routes within Gaza to distribute aid, such as the Salah Al-Din Road, the main highway of the Gaza Strip, where WFP now sends regular convoys, and the Port of Ashdod, one of Israel’s three main cargo ports.

https://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/pictures/April/20/2024/food_queue.jpg

“We are now able to send wheat, flour and other foods, and that is hugely important,” Fleischer said. “Ashdod is a functioning port. It will be able to get us directly into Gaza and into its north.

“While the signs are good now that more openings are being provided, it needs to be sustained. We still have famine on our watch from the six months of not being able to send in any aid, and let me tell you what that means besides giving statistical numbers. “When we come with our trucks, people jump on them. Not only that, they open the boxes, they take the food and eat it first before they take the rest to their families. Can you imagine how hungry they are? “That is disastrous and so we need to be able to bring this down, to give confidence to people that food is coming on a daily basis so they also are not attacking our trucks. We need this to be sustained at a much larger scale. There are 2.2 million people in Gaza that need food.”

Fleischer said that private businesses such as bakeries must also be restored and reopened, as humanitarian agencies alone will not be able to sustain Gaza for the entirety of the conflict should it continue. WFP assistance has helped 16 to reopen. “We are now restoring bakeries,” she said. “In the north, people haven’t eaten bread for a long time, and because we are able to go there currently, we are bringing fuel to bakeries as well as wheat, flour, yeast and sugar. So they’ve started operating again.

https://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/pictures/April/20/2024/p3_bread_distribution.jpg

“We also have contacts with retail shops that we used before the war. Now we are working with them, we bring them our food and the parcels that we provide, and they distribute it, so they stay alive, they keep their workers, they open every day. So as soon as commercial food comes in again, they are ready.” WFP has been touted as a potential replacement for the UN Relief and Works Agency as the primary aid agency working in Gaza after Israel raised allegations in January suggesting UNRWA staff had participated in the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, leading several donor nations to suspend funding pending an investigation.

“We cannot replace UNRWA. That is very clear,” Fleischer said. “UNRWA does much more than bring food to people. We are distributing food in camps that are managed by UNRWA. It needs to stay. That is very clear.”

https://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/pictures/April/20/2024/israeli_soldiers_at_unrwa.jpg

Gaza is not the only hunger hotspot in the region, nor the only one that has seen the provision of aid by WFP dwindle owing to funding constraints — the worst the agency has experienced in 60 years. These budget cuts have raised concerns among refugee host countries such as Jordan and Lebanon about the continuation of assistance. “This can really impact stability and what it means for the region,” Fleischer said.

“Syria is no longer at the top of the list now. Two years ago it was. But then came the Ukraine war and now we have Gaza. Do you know how this translates in terms of the assistance we provide to Syrians? We are the safety net for them. They don’t get much subsidies. “We went from supporting six million people every month with food to three, to now one million within seven months because of lack of funding. The situation is desperate. And now you also see malnutrition rates going up there. “I can tell you in Syria, when we announced those cuts, we had weapons at our distribution points, people were so desperate. We also reduced up to 40 percent of aid to refugees in Lebanon.”

https://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/pictures/April/20/2024/lebanon.jpg

And it is not just displaced communities that the agency has to support. Fleischer said that the number of Lebanese citizens requiring aid had also risen dramatically due to the country’s grinding financial crisis. Fleischer said that WFP has been able to work with the Lebanese government and the World Bank to gradually integrate those citizens to receive state welfare. In the south, however, where Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia have traded fire along the shared border since the conflict began in Gaza, the situation is different.

“We have supported 62,000 people,” said Fleischer, referring to the communities displaced by the cross-border exchanges. “These are both Lebanese citizens and Syrian refugees who have been impacted by the tensions in the south of Lebanon. “However, if it escalates, the UN and the humanitarian sector will not be able to handle it at this rate. It will exceed the funding and assistance capacity.”

https://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/pictures/April/20/2024/anp3_spotlight_28april2024.jpg

*******

Documentary: Satan, The Antichrist and The One-World Government

2024: The Rise of the Beast. Mohammed bin Salman. Man-by-Satan. MbS. For Those ‘Left Behind.’

Dear Earth, It Has Begun!

*******

In His Service,

Night Watchman

Paul Rolland

Night Watchman Ministries

www.nightwatchman.blog

Make Your (7) Decision for Christ NOW!!!!!!! Time is Up!!!!!!!

Jesus Christ’s Offer of Salvation:

The ABCs (7) of Salvation through Jesus Christ (the Lamb)

1. (7) Admit/Acknowledge/Accept that you are sinner. Ask (7) God’s forgiveness and repent of your sins.

. . . “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23).

. . . “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.” (Romans 3:10).

. . . “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8).

B. Believe Jesus is Lord. Believe that (7) Jesus Christ is who He claimed to (7) be; that He was both fully God (7) and fully man and that we are (7) saved through His death, burial, and resurrection. (7) Put your trust in Him as your (7) only hope of salvation. Become a son (7) or daughter of God by receiving Christ. (7777777) 7×7

. . . “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:15-17). For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:13).

C. Call upon His name, Confess (7) with your heart and with your lips (7) that Jesus is your Lord and Savior.

. . . “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Romans 10:9-10).

. . . “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (John 1:8-10).

. . . “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (John 2:2).

. . . “In this was manifested the love of god toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” (1 John 4:9, 14-15).

. . . “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” (Romans 5:8-10).

. . . “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23).

. . . “Jesus saith unto them, I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6).

. . . “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.” (Romans 1:16).

. . . “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” (Acts: 4:12).

. . . “Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth for there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 2:4-6).

. . . “For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thessalonians 5:9).

. . . “But as many as received him, to them gave the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” (John 1:12).

True Church / Bride of Christ Spared from God’s Wrath:

 Romans 5:8-10. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”

Romans 12:19. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

1 Thessalonians 1:10. And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

1 Thessalonians 5:9. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,

Romans 8:35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Jeremiah 30:7. Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it.

Revelation 3:10 Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.