The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is cutting food assistance in Gaza citing funding shortages, leaving around 500,000 people without monthly support as two-thirds of the territory’s population face food insecurity.
The agency said that it was reducing the number of people receiving monthly food assistance from 1.6 million to 1.1 million. It has also halved food rations, reduced cash assistance for 75,000 families and cut the number of daily hot meals from 250,000 to 150,000.
Some families in hard-to-reach areas will now receive a hot meal every other day instead of daily, the WFP added.
Around 1.4 million people in Gaza, or two-thirds of the population, face crisis levels of food insecurity or worse, including about 200,000 people experiencing emergency conditions, according to the agency.
The cuts come a year after a United States (US)-brokered ceasefire agreement aimed at ending the conflict and paving the way for Gaza’s reconstruction. However, progress on implementing the agreement has remained limited, with provisions for Hamas to disarm and Israeli forces to withdraw still unresolved.
“It’s a year into the agreement of this ceasefire. Well, life is still brutal here. There is no proper shelter. There is no basic services. There is no safety, no security,” WFP acting Executive Director Carl Skau told Reuters in Gaza.
“These cuts are happening just as we are facing the fourth winter. You know, I’ve been through the winters here, absolutely brutal,” he added.
The WFP said that it needs $450 million over the next six months to sustain its operations in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
“We tell the world now is not the time to look away. This is the time to step up to sustain this support, to protect the progress that has been made, but also to push for early recovery,” Skau said.
Israeli forces continue to illegally occupy more than 60 percent of Gaza and carry out near-daily airstrikes that kill civilians, while Hamas controls most of the remaining area, where more than two million Palestinians live, largely in temporary shelters with limited aid supplies.
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office described the WFP’s announcement as “catastrophic” and warned that the cuts could accelerate famine in the territory. It called for increased funding for aid agencies.
