World Food Programme Cuts Gaza Food Aid for 500,000 People as Funding Runs Short

The UN World Food Programme says funding shortages are forcing it to cut food aid in Gaza, leaving about 500,000 people without monthly assistance. The agency said its planned monthly help will fall from 1.6 million people to 1.1 million, a drop of about a third, Reuters reported on Monday, October 19.

The cut lands as winter nears. Nearly all of Gaza's 2.1 million people remain displaced, and two thirds rely on food aid to survive, the BBC reported. Two thirds also remain acutely food insecure, Reuters said.

What is being cut

Community kitchens are part of the reduction. Hot meals served through those kitchens will fall from 250,000 a day to 150,000 a day, the BBC reported. Families in hard to reach areas, including near the Yellow Line that marks Israel's area of military control, will get a meal every other day instead of one each day.

The World Food Programme is one of the main suppliers of food aid to Gaza. Its work includes food parcels, flour, bread, hot meals and cash help. The Monday reports do not say which families lose monthly help first, or how much money would restore the full programme.

Not because need has fallen

Carl Skau, the agency's acting executive director, told NPR in an interview published on October 18 that the agency is cutting almost half a million people from assistance in the next few weeks. He said the reason is money, not falling need and not a new block on bringing food in. The funding is no longer there, he said.

Skau had just returned from Gaza, his eighth trip since the war began. He described life there as brutal, with no basic services, wide destruction and no proper shelter. He said the agency had reached almost every person in Gaza in recent months, and that the gain against famine is fragile. More than two thirds of Gaza's population, nearly 1.4 million people, face crisis levels of acute food insecurity, NPR reported.

He also pointed to trade. Commercial goods had not entered for five days when he was in Gaza, after a dispute over taxation, though some trucks were moving again by the time he spoke.

Families already short

For families in Gaza City, the handouts were already thin. Dalal al-Dahdouh, who lives in the ruins of her home with her family of eight, told the BBC that the flour is not enough and the food boxes are not enough either. She said her family lives entirely on aid, including World Food Programme vouchers, and fears the new cuts will have a major impact.

There is no cooking gas in Gaza, because Israel treats it as a dual use item that could be used by Hamas for military purposes, the BBC reported. Wood is costly, so many families send children to find plastic and cardboard to burn as fuel for bread or hot food.

A World Food Programme official named Hughes told the BBC that most people still live in tents, with poor access to water, sanitation and health care. Food cuts, Hughes said, will add to hardship families have faced for three years. Skau made the same point to NPR: donors need to step up now, before winter rain hits people in tents.