Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

City agency gets chance to deliver aid

A Winnipeg-based aid organization will have an easier time getting supplies into the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.

Israel announced a daily three-hour ceasefire to allow Canadian Lutheran World Relief (CLWR) and other humanitarian agencies to bring supplies across the border.

"It was very difficult to find a way to transport anything into the Gaza Strip," said Robert Granke, CLWR's executive director. "This gives us the window where we can organize together with the Israeli authorities to bring the goods in. It's really helping the situation dramatically."

CLWR and other organizations such as Action by Churches Together (ACT) stepped in to provide aid to the Palestinians. They will bring in rice, flour, high-protein biscuits, blankets, medical supplies and counselling.

Liv Steinmoeggen, an ACT aid worker in Jerusalem and Palestine, said the situation in the Gaza Strip is dire. Hospital windows have been shattered from bombs exploding nearby, thousands don't have electricity and families are being shattered, she said.

A nurse was on duty at the hospital when her house was attacked, Steinmoeggen said. Two of the nurse's children were killed and three others injured.

To help with the relief effort, Canada donated $4 million Wednesday for humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip, while repeating its call for an "immediate and durable" ceasefire.

 

-- With files from The Canadian Press

meghan.hurley@freepress.mb.ca

 

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 8, 2009 A5

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