WFP Formally Cuts Gaza Aid - Monthly Recipients Down From 1.6 Million to 1.1 Million, Rations Halved, $450 Million Urgently Needed

CAIRO/GAZA - 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, Reuters and UN News reported on October 19.

The WFP said it is supporting 1.1 million of the most vulnerable people in Gaza this month, down from 1.6 million in September. Rations have been cut in half, meaning families will now receive one food parcel instead of two, and a smaller bag of wheat flour. The value of cash assistance given to 75,000 families has also been reduced, while the number of hot meals provided daily across Gaza will drop from 250,000 to 150,000, and families in hard-to-reach areas, including near the "yellow line" of Israeli military control, will receive a hot meal every other day instead of daily. For now, WFP is able to continue supporting bakeries that cover a third of Gaza's bread needs, provide nutrition assistance to 300,000 women and children and deliver healthy school snacks to 200,000 students. Since the October 2025 ceasefire agreement, its teams have reached around 1.6 million people monthly with food parcels, wheat flour, bread, hot meals, nutrition support, school snacks and cash assistance, and the agency said its food assistance "has provided a lifeline for up to 90 per cent of families in Gaza" over the past three years.

The WFP said about 1.4 million people, or roughly 67 percent of Gaza's population, face crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse, including roughly 200,000 people in emergency conditions; the share is down from 77 percent at the end of 2025, but "improvement remains modest and fragile," the agency said. More than 80 percent of the population is unemployed, and only one in five children consumes a sufficiently diverse diet.

"It's a year into the agreement of this ceasefire. Well, life is still brutal here. There is no proper shelter. There are no basic services. There is no safety, no security," Acting Executive Director of the World Food Programme 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 funding for its operations in Palestine in 2026 amounts to less than half of what was received in previous years, and it urgently requires $450 million to maintain critical operations in Gaza and the West Bank through March. Funding shortages have also affected its operations in the West Bank, where the number of people receiving assistance was cut by half - from 400,000 to 200,000 - in September. Last year's U.S.-brokered Gaza ceasefire calls for the eventual reconstruction of the territory, but Reuters noted little progress has been made towards implementing a deal to end the conflict that includes terms for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw its troops.

Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)

Photo: 图：加沙一处联合国庇护点内的粮食分发（资料图）。摄影：Al Jazeera English，CC BY-SA 2.0（经Wikimedia Commons）

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