Income drops in Gaza since Hamas takeover

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of households in Gaza have suffered a sharp drop in income since June when Hamas seized the Gaza Strip and Israel tightened sanctions, the U.N. food agency said on Monday.

The World Food Program said the deterioration was particularly alarming for the more than 460,000 non-refugees who live in Gaza, home to 1.5 million people.

The agency found 71 percent of non-refugee households surveyed were having increased problems since June producing or buying enough food to eat.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency provides food and other services to refugees.

Israel tightened its economic and military cordon around the Gaza Strip after Hamas's takeover and says it allows enough food into Gaza for the entire population.

The World Food Program survey found median household income fell 30 percent over the last six months.

The survey said about 70 percent of non-refugee households surveyed now earned less than $1.2 per person per day, compared to 54.5 percent before June.

It found 62 percent of household spending went on food, putting Gaza's non-refugee population on par with Somalia. That compares to 37 percent in a 2004 survey.

The agency said the increase reflected both rising food prices and diminishing incomes.

The agency said the percentage of underweight and anemic children has also increased since June.

"All these indicators point towards an alarming situation in the status of Gaza's non-refugee population," the World Food Program said.

"If the status quo is maintained, the economic disintegration will continue and wider segments of the Gazan population will be become vulnerable."

Hamas routed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's forces in the Gaza Strip in June, prompting him to sack the Hamas-led government and appoint a Western-backed administration in the occupied West Bank.

Western economic sanctions remain in place against the Hamas administration in Gaza.

Israel has largely closed the main border crossings in and out of the coastal strip to all but humanitarian supplies.

Dozens of countries met on Monday in Paris to pledge billions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians in support of Abbas.

(Reporting by Adam Entous; Editing by Robert Woodward)