MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th April, 2022) Palestine may run short of wheat within three weeks due to the food price spike prompted by the situation in Ukraine, international charitable NGO Oxfam said on Monday.
"Wheat flour reserves in the Occupied Palestinian Territory could be exhausted within three weeks and the cost of this food staple has surged by nearly 25% because of the Ukraine crisis," Oxfam said in a press release.
According to the NGO, the Palestinian Authority "has to import 95% of its wheat" and is heavily dependent on Israel's food storage facilities.
"Palestinian households are being hit hard by rising global food prices, and many are struggling to meet their basic needs. The reliance on imports and the constraints forced upon them by Israel's continuing military occupation, settler violence and land grabs are compounding the food crisis," Shane Stevenson, Oxfam Country Director in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, said.
Ukraine is a key global grain producer, accounting for 9% of the world's wheat exports, 13.5% of corn and 70% of sunflower products. The United Nations' World Food Program (WFP) says, the Ukrainian crisis has triggered a price spike on key staples in the diet of most families in the heavily import-depended middle East, "putting basic food items beyond the reach of the most vulnerable."
