WFP cuts Gaza food aid by a third as winter nears

The World Food Programme has confirmed it is cutting food aid to Gaza by about a third because of funding shortages, in a reduction that will affect around half a million people. The UN agency will reduce the number of people it supports to about 1.1 million, down by 500,000. It will also cut hot meals from 250,000 to 150,000 a day and halve monthly food rations, including bags of flour.

The cuts come as winter approaches and nearly all of Gaza's 2.1 million people remain displaced by war. That is despite a ceasefire agreed between Israel and Hamas last year. About two-thirds of the population rely on food aid to survive. Families living in makeshift tents say they are already struggling. One mother said her children would remain hungry without food from a community kitchen. She described a tent with torn, patched tarps that floods when it rains. Another mother, Adelao Samir Al-Dalou, 39, said she has a family of eight and receives flour and food boxes. She said the rations used to arrive every month but now come every two months, and the flour and boxes are not enough.

Carl Skau, the WFP's deputy executive director and chief operating officer, returned from his eighth visit to Gaza. He said life remains brutal, with no progress on water, sanitation or shelter and insecurity continuing. He estimated 40 to 50 security incidents a day and said that at one distribution point someone had been shot and killed the day before. He said food security gains had pushed back famine last year, but they were fragile and could easily be reversed.

Skau said the cuts were not caused by an inability to bring food into Gaza or by a lack of need. They were caused by funding shortages. He said choosing who will not get fed is 'almost an impossible job'. The agency plans to focus on about one million of the most vulnerable people and rotate support among the rest. He called for more resources, but also for early recovery, including opening markets and the commercial sector, lowering prices, and supporting fishing and small-scale farming. He said WFP engages daily with the Israeli government, and that food aid has been relatively well facilitated, though operations remain a daily struggle with obstacles.

The WFP says it has half the funds available this year for Gaza operations compared with last year or the year before. It links the shortfall to global economic pressures on donor countries, competing humanitarian crises in Yemen and elsewhere, and higher operational costs caused by disruptions at choke points including the Strait of Hormuz, the Black Sea and Bab el-Mandeb. It also warns that Gaza has largely fallen out of the news headlines.

With winter approaching, Skau said shelter and sanitation are critical. He described large tent camps with plastic patched together, dirt floors that become muddy, and sewage and garbage everywhere. He warned that rain will flood the camps and that desperation, cuts and poor conditions could increase tension and instability.