UN food agency cuts Gaza assistance by one-third amid funding shortages

The UN World Food Program (WFP) announced Monday that funding shortages have forced it to cut food assistance in the Gaza Strip by around one-third, leaving half a million people without critical support as winter approaches. In a statement, the agency said it is now assisting 1.1 million vulnerable people in Gaza, down from 1.6 million last month, while food rations have been halved. Families receiving assistance will now get one food parcel instead of two, along with a smaller bag of wheat flour, it said. The number of daily hot meals has also dropped from 250,000 to 150,000, while families in hard-to-reach areas, including near the Israeli army-controlled "yellow line," will receive meals every other day instead of daily. The agency has also reduced the value of cash assistance for 75,000 families. According to WFP, an estimated 1.4 million people, or 67% of Gaza's population, face crisis-level food insecurity or worse, including around 200,000 experiencing emergency conditions requiring immediate food assistance to prevent deaths from hunger. Only one in five children consumes a sufficiently diverse diet, while unemployment exceeds 80%, leaving many families unable to afford nutritious food. WFP warned that "modest" improvements in food security since the October 2025 ceasefire remain "fragile" and could quickly be reversed by further reductions in humanitarian assistance. Funding shortages have also forced the agency to halve its assistance in the occupied West Bank, from 400,000 to 200,000 people. The agency said it urgently needs $450 million to sustain critical operations across Gaza and the West Bank over the next six months, through March 2027. Life in Gaza remains 'absolutely brutal' Speaking at a UN briefing, WFP Acting Executive Director Carl Skau said the agency would seek to rotate food assistance rather than cut off 500,000 people entirely, prioritizing the most vulnerable. Skau stressed that the reductions were driven solely by funding shortages, not delivery obstacles or declining needs. "I want to be clear: this is not because the needs are going down, and it's not because we aren't able to bring in the food. This is only because we have less funding," he said, noting that WFP had recorded only three incidents of interference with aid deliveries throughout the war. He warned that life in Gaza remained "absolutely brutal," with UN teams recording up to 50 security incidents daily and UNICEF reporting an average of one child killed each day since the ceasefire took effect last year. Skau also said commercial deliveries had been halted for five days, driving up food prices. He urged the removal of Israeli restrictions on certain so-called "dual-use" materials needed for shelter, water and sanitation. Turning to the occupied West Bank, he warned that a hunger crisis was emerging even as the Palestinian territory also continues to face a "human rights and protection crisis." "Primarily, it's still a human rights and protection crisis, but it's now also becoming a hunger crisis because food insecurity has more than doubled in the last three years," Skau said. "Almost a million Palestinians now need food assistance, and yet also in the West Bank, we are now forced to cut back," he said, adding that attacks by Israeli occupiers over only the first two weeks of the sensitive olive harvest have "already surpassed the whole of last year."