Prague, Sept 2 (CTK) – Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek has approved humanitarian aid of three million crowns for the reconstruction of social and healthcare infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, the Foreign Ministry announced in a press release yesterday.
The Czech Republic will send the financial aid to the Palestinian territory, where thousands of houses remain damaged after the armed conflict with Israel last year, through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
In June, Zaoralek (senior government Social Democrats, CSSD) became the first Czech politician in many years to visit the Gaza Strip. He said he was shocked by the conditions in the strip.
Zaoralek said he considered a better access to jobs for young Palestinians the best way of improving the situation. The unemployment rate among young people in Gaza is around 60 percent.
The traces of the last war, in which some 2200 Palestinians, dozens of Israeli soldiers and several civilian inhabitants of Israel died, are apparent all over the Gaza Strip. About 100,000 local inhabitants are still living outside their original homes.
($1=24.040 crowns)
