World Food Programme Cuts Gaza Rations by About a Third
The United Nations agency says it must “drastically reduce lifesaving assistance” in Gaza for lack of money, cutting the number of people it helps from 1.6 million to 1.1 million. Hot meals from community kitchens fall from 250,000 a day to 150,000, and monthly flour and ration boxes from 1.1 million recipients to 600,000.
The agency is unusually direct that this is not about access or need. Shaun Hughes, its Palestine director, says the cuts are being made because of finances, “not because the needs are coming down, or because we don’t have access — we do”. It has received less than half as much funding for its Palestinian operations this year as in previous years. The context is that nearly all of Gaza’s 2.1 million people remain displaced and two-thirds rely on food aid to survive; a year after the ceasefire there has been no reconstruction, most people are still in tents, and Mr Hughes describes “poor access to water and sanitation and healthcare”. One constraint compounds the cut: there is no cooking gas in Gaza because Israel treats it as a dual-use item that Hamas could put to military purposes, so prepared meals matter more than raw rations. Families in the hardest-to-reach areas move from a daily meal to one every other day. This rests on a single approved outlet, which interviewed two displaced mothers alongside the agency.