U.S. Providing Rapid Assistance to Palestinians

The United States is responding quickly to provide hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of emergency humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians, said State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher.

Speaking at the State Department daily press briefing in Washington April 22, Boucher said the United States wants to see that the assistance "gets to the people who need it as soon as possible."

"[I]t's water purification to take care of 10,000 people a day, it's tents, it's 1,600 hygiene and disease prevention kits. So it's a substantial quantity of immediate assistance, valued at, I think, about a quarter of a million dollars. And then there's another 50,000 or so that we can use on the spot from our Consul General," said Boucher.

Boucher said that more access is being provided to aid workers for their relief efforts, but called upon the Israeli government to "allow the maximum possible access."

"There are humanitarian workers getting in. But given the situation on the ground, a lot of this depends on a daily basis on the facilitation of the Israelis, and we would urge them to continue to provide access and allow the maximum possible access for aid workers and people like that," he said.

The United States is looking to resolve the stand-offs between Israelis and Palestinians in Bethlehem and Ramallah so that Israel can complete its withdrawal from areas it recently occupied. He said a complete Israeli withdrawal would open the way for "the beginning of security talks and a real cease-fire."

The spokesman also called upon Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to authorize his people to begin implementing security cooperation with Israel, as well as to issue instructions to the populace "not to take part in fomenting violence."

While stating that the Palestinian Authority is capable of preventing some terrorist attacks against Israelis, Boucher said that the recent Israeli incursions had "severely degraded" their capabilities.

He said that the United States would undertake an assessment of their capabilities and "help them reconstitute a security service that can be capable of maintaining the peace and preventing terrorism throughout the areas under their control."

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