UNITED NATIONS, May 6: As the situation in the Israeli occupied Palestinian territories continues to deteriorate, the diplomatic quartet — US, European Union, Russia and the United Nations — will meet in New York on Tuesday (May 9) in an effort to discuss a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, UN officials said on Friday.

The meeting at UN Headquarters in New York is being held at the principals’ level and is expected to be attended by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, with the EU represented by its High Representative Javier Solana.

The quartet is sponsoring the long-running roadmap peace plan, which seeks to establish two states – Israel and Palestine – living side by side in peace, originally targeted for achievement by the end of last year.

Underlining the human dimension of western countries’ decision to cut off funding to the Hamas-led administration, a senior official of the main UN agency helping Palestinian refugees said a crisis was already at hand, with shortages of medicines and many Gaza workers going with their salaries unpaid.

“Two weeks ago we were counting down to a humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” said John Ging, UN Relief and Works Agency’s Director of Operations for Gaza. “Today the crisis is at our doorstep.”