Two new grants will enable Catholic Relief Services (CRS) to help vulnerable people living in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. With $734,000 in funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), CRS will assist 13,000 residents of Gaza as they recover from the recent fighting between Israel and Hamas. In the West Bank, a $2 million grant from the World Food Programme will provide bread and dairy products to 15,000 people impacted by high food prices.

In Gaza, the USAID grant will enable CRS to mobilize teams from an existing youth network and provide them with tools to clean up homes and remove rubble in communities devastated by the fighting; they will also be equipped to help households with small home repairs. Youth teams will work through partners to organize activities for approximately 600 young children impacted by the fighting; those partners will also assist CRS in distributing an average of 2,000 relief packages containing fabric to be used for making clothing, as well as food items such as tuna, cheese, rice and cooking oil.

Matt Davis, CRS country representative in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, said, "With the additional funding, CRS looks forward to expanding our current programming to further engage our youth-based partner network with home and community cleanup activities. What is particularly exciting about the activity with Gazan youth is that it involves them in substantial recovery efforts-and also supports an internal healing process that is so necessary after the traumatic recent three-week conflict."

As of early February the Gaza health ministry reported the Palestinian death toll had reached 1,440. Thirteen Israelis-ten of them soldiers-were also killed during the course of the fighting. To date, CRS has distributed emergency supplies to more than 9,000 people throughout Gaza; additional distributions are in the pipeline. The new funding from USAID will enable CRS to continue emergency programming there for four months.

In the West Bank, CRS is beginning a new food voucher program that aims to help poor, urban residents in areas such as Hebron and Yatta cope with soaring food prices while simultaneously increasing agricultural productivity. Through a $2 million grant from the World Food Programme and nearly $175,000 of internal funding, CRS will supply 15,000 people with the means to buy daily rations of bread and dairy products to complement their diets. In addition to the nutritive value provided, the program will also expand the productivity of the dairy and agricultural sectors in the West Bank. The vouchers will be distributed through January, 2010.

Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the U.S. Catholic community. The agency alleviates suffering and provides assistance to people in need in more than 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality. For more information, please visit www.crs.org.