GAZA CITY (AFP) - Farmers in the Gaza Strip where poultry have been hit by a bird flu outbreak are refusing to cull their chickens before receiving financial compensation.
‘The farmers are not letting us into their coops. They don't want to kill their chickens and are demanding compensation,’ Azzam Tbeileh, the deputy Palestinian agriculture minister, told AFP.
He warned that the authorities may have to resort to the use of force in the wake of the detection last week of the potentially deadly strain of the H5N1 strain of bird flu.
‘Today we will give them a last chance to liquidate their stock otherwise we will use force. We will deploy security forces to take them out of the farms and slaughter the chickens,’ he said Sunday.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) urged international donors on Saturday to provide urgent aid to the Palestinian Authority to contain the outbreak in the Gaza Strip.
‘According to the international guidelines, the local authorities should start containment measures, which include culling birds within a radius of three kilometres (two miles) around the location of the outbreak,’ it said.
The WHO said that in addition to two confirmed cases in Juhr al-Deik in the centre of the territory and Rafah in the south, there were a further two suspected cases in El-Bureij in the centre and Beit Lahia in the north.
No human cases have been detected.
In an interview Friday, Israel's Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said every assistance was being offered to the Palestinians to help them deal with the bird flu outbreak.
But cooperation is likely to be hampered by the swearing in on Wednesday of a new Palestinian government dominated by Islamic militant group Hamas, with which Israel has vowed to have no dealings.
The European Union and the United States have also both threatened to cut funding for the new government unless Hamas renounces violence and recognises both Israel and past agreements with the Palestinians.