WFP cuts food aid to 500,000 in Gaza due to funding shortfall

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) urgently needs US$450 million over the next six months to maintain critical operations including food aid in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The World Food Programme said Monday it would end monthly assistance to 500,000 people in Gaza due to a funding shortfall, despite acute needs in the war-battered Palestinian territory. With the cutbacks, 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza -- still about half the population -- will be receiving either food or cash assistance each month from the UN agency, in reduced amounts.

The UN World Food Programme has said funding shortages are forcing major cuts to its aid programme in Gaza, leaving about 500,000 people without monthly food support in a territory where two-thirds of the population struggle to get enough to eat. The WFP said it was reducing the number of recipients of its monthly assistance […]

The World Food Programme said Monday it would end monthly assistance to 500,000 people in Gaza due to a funding shortfall, despite acute needs in the war-battered Palestinian territory. With the cutbacks, 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza — still about half the population — will be receiving either food or cash assistance each month from the UN agency, in reduced amounts. The World Food Programme (WFP) said its efforts had mitigated the effects during a famine last year in Gaza — a description of the situation disputed by Israel — and warned that conditions had not improved to the point that it can take away aid. “People are not safe. Airstrikes continue on a daily basis. People continue to be displaced,” Shaun Hughes, the WFP country director, told AFP at the agency’s office in east Jerusalem. “Almost everybody remains without a permanent home to live in. And the humanitarian conditions are brutal,” he said. According to the latest assessments, 1.4 million people — or two-thirds of Gaza’s population — are still “acutely food insecure” and need humanitarian assistance to survive, he said. In August last year, the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification said that Gaza was suffering famine conditions. Israel, which has blockaded the territory and attacked it relentlessly since the unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on it by Hamas, described the finding as a lie. The famine classification was lifted in December, two months after a US-brokered ceasefire was announced in Gaza. Israel has kept striking Gaza since then, vowing to kill anyone involved in the October 7 attack. Since the ceasefire, the WFP has been able to step up assistance and had been reaching between 1.5 million and 1.8 million people every month. “This has been a lifeline. But now, rather than being able to sustain and scale up that assistance, we’re actually having to reduce it,” Hughes said. “And that’s not because we don’t have humanitarian access to deliver food; that’s because we don’t have funding.” Less aid to each recipient In addition to reducing the number of people who receive rations, the WFP has been forced to shrink the content. Families receiving food assistance will now get only one food parcel instead of two and a smaller bag of wheat flour, the WFP said in an operational note. The 75,000 families who receive assistance in cash will see the amount reduced from 1,250 to 750 shekels ($400 to $240) per month. The WFP is funded by governments as well as private donors. It has seen a sharp drop in resources, including after President Donald Trump returned to power in the United States and drastically slashed contributions to UN agencies as well as bilateral aid. The agency says it needs about $450 million over the next six months for its operations in Gaza and the West Bank, but in 2026 it has only received about half the usual financing for the Palestinian territories. In September, the agency also reduced by half the number of aid recipients in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, from 400,000 to 200,000. “Now is not the time in the history of Palestine and Gaza to turn away from what is happening in Gaza,” Hughes said. The WFP says that conditions have moderately improved in Gaza but noted that needs could rise again with the onset of winter. Israel has allowed more goods into Gaza under the terms of the Trump ceasefire but still imposes heavy restrictions, turning away shipments of anything that is seen as having potential military use — a policy that has included blocking even prosthetic limbs, according to the United Nations. Israel has ramped up longstanding criticism of the United Nations since the Gaza war, accusing the world body of bias and perpetuating dependency among Palestinians.

UN agency World Food Programme to cut food aid to Gaza as funding crisis threatens millions

"As of this month, we're now cutting half a million people from the number of people that we're assisting," Shaun Hughes, the WFP country director, told AFP.

Oct 19 (Reuters) - The UN World Food Programme warned that funding shortages are forcing major cuts to its Gaza response, leaving about 500,000 people without monthly food aid in a territory where two thirds of the population remains acutely food insecure.The WFP said it was reducing its planned monthly assistance from 1.6 million to 1.1 million people. (Reporting by Nidal Al-MughrabiEditing by David Goodman)

The UN World Food Programme has warned that funding shortages will leave about 500,000 people in the Gaza Strip without critical food aid in a territory where two thirds of the population remains acutely food insecure. The WFP said it is reducing its monthly assistance from 1.6 million to 1.1 million people.

Half a million people will lose access to food assistance in Gaza due to United Nations funding cuts, according to the World Food Programme.

The number of people helped by the UN agency in the Palestinian territory will drop by about a third - from 1.6 million to 1.1 million.

The UN's World Food Programme says 1.4 million people in Gaza are suffering acute food shortages and that funding gaps are forcing cutbacks in critical aid, despite the U.S. brokered Hamas-Israel ceasefire.