WFP Cuts Gaza Food Aid for 500,000 Amid Funding

The World Food Programme (WFP) announced on Monday that it is ending monthly support for 500,000 people in Gaza due to a critical lack of funding. Even with these reductions, the agency will continue providing food or cash aid to roughly 1.1 million Palestinians, though at significantly lower levels. We rely on aid to provide part of our food,” she said. The WFP is funded by governments as well as private donors.

Shaun Hughes, the WFP country director, stated from the agency’s East Jerusalem office that the organization is forced to shrink its operations despite the persistent needs in the region. But now, rather than being able to sustain and scale up that assistance, we’re actually having to reduce it,” Shaun Hughes, the WFP country director, told AFP at the agency’s office in east Jerusalem. But now we do not know how we will meet our family’s needs, especially after community kitchens in Gaza stopped operating some time ago,” he said, the assistance helped us get by for several days.

He noted that while humanitarian access remains open, the lack of financial resources prevents the agency from sustaining its previous reach.

Current assessments indicate that approximately 1.4 million people—two-thirds of Gaza’s population—remain in a state of acute food insecurity. According to the latest assessments, 1.4 million people — or two-thirds of Gaza’s population — are still “acutely food insecure” and need humanitarian assistance to survive, he said. ‘Extremely difficult’ Palestinians living in Gaza, where nearly the entire population has been displaced at least once, voiced alarm at the cuts in assistance. We live in a tent and do not have the money to buy everything we need. Between 1.5 million and 1.8 million people have been receiving assistance every month.

The impact of the cuts is hitting families hard. Those receiving food assistance will now be limited to one food parcel instead of two, alongside a reduction in the size of wheat flour bags provided. Furthermore, 75,000 families relying on cash assistance will see their monthly payments slashed from 1,250 shekels to 750 shekels, or from $400 down to $240.

Local residents expressed alarm at the news. Samaher al-Najjar, a 45-year-old mother living in a tent in Khan Yunis, described the difficulty of feeding her children, noting that the aid was essential for their survival. Ayman Daghmash, 40, from Gaza City, characterized the cuts as frightening, noting that community kitchens have already ceased operations and local food prices remain far beyond the reach of those without steady income. All we want is for our children to have something to eat every day.

The WFP has previously helped mitigate famine-like conditions in the territory, a record of success that remains disputed by Israeli officials. The agency warns that conditions on the ground have not improved enough to warrant a decrease in humanitarian intervention. In addition to the cuts in Gaza, the WFP halved the number of aid recipients in the Israeli-occupied West Bank from 400,000 to 200,000 in September. In September, the agency also reduced by half the number of aid recipients in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, from 400,000 to 200,000.

Financially, the agency requires roughly $450 million for its operations across Gaza and the West Bank over the next six months. However, it has only secured about half of its expected financing for 2026. This shortfall has been exacerbated by a significant drop in resources, including a major reduction in US contributions following the return of President Donald Trump to office.

While a US-brokered ceasefire implemented a year ago allowed for an increase in goods entering Gaza, aid remains restricted by Israeli policies. Israel continues to block items deemed to have potential military use, a list that has included basic medical supplies like prosthetic limbs. Meanwhile, the Israeli government has intensified its criticism of UN agencies, accusing them of perpetuating dependency and showing bias throughout the ongoing conflict. Vowing to kill anyone involved in the October 7 attack, israel has kept striking Gaza since then.