UNITED NATIONS - UN officials on Monday implored Israel anew to allow urgently needed aid supplies, including plastic bags and human rights textbooks, to enter the Gaza Strip.

'It is absolutely crucial that Israel allow the crossings to be opened and also expand the list of items that go in,' Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN special representative for children and armed conflict, told reporters following her recent, four-day visit to Gaza, the West Bank and southern Israel.

'At the moment less than 200 (aid) trucks are going through (the crossing points into Gaza),' she said. 'We need at least 400 just for the humanitarian needs and over 1,000 once reconstruction begins.' Meanwhile, UN spokesman Michele Montas told a press briefing that food distribution to 900,000 Palestinians by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) 'continues to be jeopardised by Israel's refusal to let materials for plastic bags into Gaza'.

He said UNRWA was now forced to get the plastic from the local market, a process which he described as 'unreliable' and 'very expensive'. 'But we have to somehow keep going until sense prevails and they (the Israelis) allow to bring in the plastic pallets to make the plastic bags, with 900,000 people queueing up for food at UNRWA,' Mr Ging added.

The UNRWA official expressed exasperation over this closure policy, which he noted was also 'obstructing the teaching of human rights' in UNRWA schools.

Mr Ging said that since Gaza students returned to school on January 24 in the wake of the 22-day Israeli military onslaught on Gaza, 'we have as yet been unable to get in the paper we need to print the human rights textbooks and the other textbooks'. 'These are practical consequences of these flawed, failing and failed policies and they have to be changed urgently,' he fumed.

'We continue to appeal for common sense to prevail and for priority to be given to the needs, first and foremost, of the children and then the rest of the population.' On January 24, UNRWA reopened all of its 221 schools, which educate some 200,000 Palestinians in Gaza and provided shelter to tens of thousands of people during the fighting.

Meanwhile Mr Ging confirmed that Hamas, which rules Gaza, had returned aid shipments it seized last week and said that as a result UNRWA would now rescind its decision to suspend the aid delivery.

'I am pleased to report that all of the aid has been returned to our warehouses. We have assurances that there won't be a reoccurence (of the aid seizure).' He said UNRWA would resume its aid delivery to the Gaza population on Wednesday since the crossing points would be closed Tuesday because of the Israeli general elections. -- AFP