$4 million dispersed for energy-strapped Gaza: UN chief

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has announced that $4 million would be dispersed to help U.N. agencies in the Gaza Strip deal with the enclave’s chronic electricity crisis.

Speaking at a school in Gaza City on the final day of his first Israel-Palestine tour on Aug. 30, Guterres described the situation in Gaza as “one of the most dramatic humanitarian crises that I’ve seen.”

He also urged Israel and Egypt to lift their 10-year-long blockade of Gaza, which effectively bars access to the coastal enclave by air, land and sea.    
   
Since March, the people of Gaza have been forced to get by on about four hours of electricity a day after the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority reduced electricity payments to Israel -- which supplies a portion of Gaza’s energy needs.

Speaking later at Jerusalem’s Museum of the Jewish People, Guterres reiterated that a “two-state solution” was the only viable means of establishing peace in the region.

He also criticized attempts to change “facts on the ground,” including Israeli settlement-building in the occupied West Bank and attacks on Israelis by Palestinians.

During his three-day trip to the region - his first since assuming the U.N.’s top post last year - Guterres met with both Israeli and Palestinian officials.    
   
While in Israel, the U.N. chief heard repeated complaints about the world body, which Israel accuses of unfairly focusing on its human rights record.