DAVOS, Jan 29: The United Nations launched an emergency appeal on Thursday for $613 million to help Palestinians recover from Israel’s three weeks of military operations in Gaza.

Donations would enable the UN and other aid organisations to jump into action, meeting critical needs for food, clean water, shelter, medicine and restoration of basic services, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.

“Help is indeed needed urgently,” he told reporters at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

Mr Ban — the first world leader to enter Gaza since an Israeli blockade of the territory in June 2007 — said the failure to act quickly would lead to even greater humanitarian calamity among the 1.4 million civilians who suffered because of the offensive launched in December to crush Hamas.

“More than one-third of the 6,600 deaths and injured were children and women,” Mr Ban said. “As a father of three, I was especially troubled by the suffering and trauma that so many families went through.”—AP