Members of the diplomatic ‘Quartet’ on the Middle East - the United Nations, the United States, the Russian Federation and the European Union (EU) - today endorsed the continuation of a stop-gap measure for providing aid directly to the Palestinian people.

In a statement, the Quartet backed the continuation for three months of the Temporary International Mechanism, the means devised by the EU and the World Bank to provide aid directly to the Palestinian people by bypassing the Hamas-led Government, which has been isolated internationally because it has not renounced violence and does not recognize Israel.

After the three-month period, the Quartet said it would “again review the need for such a mechanism.”

Commending the World Bank and EU efforts to facilitate needs-based assistance directly to the Palestinian people through the Mechanism, the Quartet encouraged donors to “respond to humanitarian and other assistance requests by international organizations, especially UN agencies, active in the West Bank and Gaza.”

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