Gaza, ALRAY - United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has stopped to serve 9.500 families in Gaza with food aid since the beginning of 2013.

Director of UNRWA operations in Gaza Robert Turner said “in our efforts to improve the efficiency of targeting poor families, we continue to make a comprehensive study of the cases benefited from emergency food aid during 2012 to work accordingly in 2013,”

He explained Wednesday during a meeting with a number of journalists that “the positive results have applies as from the first distribution cycle for this year: 5,430 families have been added to the list of beneficiaries of food aid while food ration offered to 4002 families increased,”

But Turner indicated that “the results which show that some families turned to qualify for a smaller amount of food aid or they do not qualify at all have been applied yet,”

Results showed that 9558 families reclassified to be non-poor, and thus became ineligible for food aid, whereas 1723 below absolute poverty line have been registered to receive aid ration, Turner added.

“This process is not to cut or limit services; UNRWA used to conduct surveys on poverty, noting that UNRWA increased the aid for the registered beneficiaries since April,”

He revealed that UNRWA will soon receive a new grant that would enable it to distribute food aid in the next cycle, but that would be to the detriment of the school feeding program which costs UNRWA 5 million dollars annually.