The cash crunch has resulted in a worsening humanitarian crisis, prompting the United Nations and aid organizations working in the Palestinian territories to ask donor nations for additional funding yesterday. In November, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and various NGOs asked the international community for $215 million in their annual emergency aid appeal for programs in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.Yesterday, they took the rare step of revising that plea just six months after first making it, saying an additional $170 million would be necessary to avert disaster. "The situation has deteriorated to such a degree that we're now forced to revise it upward," OCHA head David Shearer told potential donors and journalists at a press conference in East Jerusalem. The additional aid money would be channeled largely into job creation programs, cash and food handouts for the needy and health care.