The United Nations' top humanitarian official in Occupied Territories said on Thursday that Gaza is “pretty close to a welfare society” with 80 percent of the population relying on some form of assistance. Australian Maxwell Gaylard, who has been the U.N.'s coordinator for humanitarian and development activities in the Occupied Territories since March last year, said nothing has changed since he came on board and that Israel's invasion of Gaza had compounded an already dire situation caused by the blockade. “The blockade has to be lifted,” Gaylard said calling it “collective punishment of 1.5 million people.”
