Commissioner General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Karen Koning Abu Zayd urged the international community on Wednesday to resume aid to the Palestinians frozen following Hamas' assumption of power.

Abu Zayd made the appeal at a press conference held in the Jordanian capital Amman.

"The international community should not continue freezing the salaries of Palestinian National Authority employees and stopping assistance to the Palestinian people," she said.

"Some 200,000 refugees in the West Bank and Gaza have been unemployed since the outbreak of the Palestinian Uprising in 2000 and are receiving assistance from the agency, in addition to some 165,000 government employees whose salaries have not been paid since March," she added.

"As a result of the suspension of international assistance, some 76,000 families depending on salaries from the Palestinian National Authority have been registered with the agency," she continued.

"These cases of severe hardship have further aggravated the UNRWA's financial problems," said Abu Zayd, adding that the agency was in a difficult financial situation, which would affect the level of service provided to Palestinian refugees, especially in the West Bank and Gaza.

The commissioner general called on the Quartet of key Mideast peace mediators-- the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia-- to find a solution to the aid issue in a bid to ease the Palestinian refugees' sufferings.

Key donors, including the United States and the European Union, have cut off direct aid to the Palestinian government led by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) since the Islamic group, winning the January legislative polls, took the reins of the Palestinian administration in late March.

Hamas has refused to renounce violence, recognize Israel's right to exist and honor previous Palestinian-Israeli agreements, three demands by Washington and Brussels.

Israel has also halted the monthly transfer of about 55 million U.S. dollars of tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinians since Hamas' sweeping election victory.

The EU and the U.S. are currently considering a new mechanism to give some humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, but the flow of money is not expected to come any time soon.

The aid cut and tax freezing have led to a grave financial crisis, of which ordinary Palestinians bear the brunt and the Hamas government has been unable to pay about 165,000 civil servants since March.

UNRWA is a relief and human development agency, providing education, healthcare, social services and emergency aid to over 4. 3 million Palestinian refugees living in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

The agency is by far the largest UN operation in the Middle East, with over 27,000 staff, almost all of them refugees themselves, working directly to benefit their communities-- as teachers, doctors, nurses or social workers.

Source: Xinhua