The World Food Programme (WFP) has announced cuts to food assistance for more than 500,000 Palestinians in Gaza due to a funding shortfall, further deepening the humanitarian crisis as Israel’s genocidal war and attacks on the besieged strip continue.
Shaun Hughes, the WFP’s country director, said on Monday that the cuts would reduce the number of Palestinians receiving food or cash assistance from the agency to approximately 1.1 million, despite widespread food insecurity and the population’s heavy reliance on humanitarian aid.
“People are not safe. Air strikes continue on a daily basis. People continue to be displaced,” Hughes said, describing humanitarian conditions in Gaza as “brutal.” He added that almost everyone remained without a permanent home.
The WFP needs more than $399.25 million over the next six months to restore and maintain critical programmes in Palestine.
Cuts to deliveries of ration boxes, cash stipends to buy food in markets, and hot meals at community kitchens have already been rolled out.
Two-thirds of Gaza’s population face crisis-level food insecurity, classified as Phase 3 under the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the system used to assess the severity of food insecurity and identify populations at risk of famine.
Another 200,000 Palestinians face emergency-level food insecurity, classified as IPC Phase 4, one step below famine conditions. Hughes said they urgently need humanitarian assistance to prevent deaths from hunger.
Under the so-called ceasefire, repeatedly violated by Israel, the WFP had expanded its operations to reach between 1.5 million and 1.8 million Palestinians each month.
The latest funding shortfall now threatens to reverse some of those gains, leaving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians without assistance as displacement, destruction and food insecurity persist.
Before Israel’s genocidal war, Gaza produced enough fruit and vegetables to meet its own needs.
Israeli forces have since taken control of the vast majority of the beseiged territory’s farmland, while destroying the sophisticated greenhouses and irrigation systems that sustained agricultural production.
Fishing, another longstanding source of protein for Palestinians in Gaza, has also been severely curtailed by the Israeli navy, which bars fishing boats from accessing waters off the coast.
The funding-driven cuts come as Israeli attacks continue to kill Palestinians. Gaza’s Health Ministry reported that at least five people had been killed in Israeli attacks over the preceding 24 hours, bringing the reported death toll since October 2023 to at least 74,480, with another 175,539 people wounded.
The ministry said at least 1,552 Palestinians had been killed and 5,421 wounded since the so-called ceasefire took effect. Emergency teams have also recovered 839 bodies from beneath the rubble.
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