UN Program Out of Food in Gaza as Israel Maintains Blockade
"No humanitarian or commercial supplies have entered Gaza for more than seven weeks as all main border crossing points remain closed. This is the longest closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced," said the World Food Program.
As Israel continues to bomb and impose a total blockade on the Gaza Strip, the United Nations World Food Program announced Friday that "WFP delivered its last remaining food stocks to hot meals kitchens" in the Palestinian enclave, which "are expected to fully run out of food in the coming days."
"For weeks, hot meal kitchens have been the only consistent source of food assistance for people in Gaza. Despite reaching just half the population with only 25% of daily food needs, they have provided a critical lifeline," the U.N. program said in a statement. "WFP is also deeply concerned about the severe lack of safe water and fuel for cooking—forcing people to scavenge for items to burn to cook a meal."
This is just the latest troubling update from the group since Israel began its total blockade on March 2—following months of severely restricting aid and commercial goods—and then ditched a fragile cease-fire with Gaza-based Hamas that had been in effect since mid-January. Last month, all 25 WFP-supported bakeries closed due to lack of wheat flour and cooking fuel, and program parcels with two weeks of rations for families were exhausted.
"More than 116,000 metric tons of food assistance—enough to feed 1 million people for up to four months—is positioned at aid corridors and is ready to be brought into Gaza."
"No humanitarian or commercial supplies have entered Gaza for more than seven weeks as all main border crossing points remain closed," WFP said Friday. "This is the longest closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced, exacerbating already fragile markets and food systems. Food prices have skyrocketed up to 1,400% compared to during the cease-fire, and essential food commodities are in short supply, raising serious nutrition concerns for vulnerable populations, including children under 5, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and the elderly."
Over 18 months into a U.S.-backed military assault for which Israel faces a genocide case at the Interenational Court of Justice, WFP said that "the situation inside the Gaza Strip has once again reached a breaking point: People are running out of ways to cope, and the fragile gains made during the short ceasefire have unravelled. Without urgent action to open borders for aid and trade to enter, WFP's critical assistance may be forced to end."
While conditions are dire, WFP is prepared to keep feeding people, if Israel will allow aid into the besieged Palestinian enclave. The program highlighted that "more than 116,000 metric tons of food assistance—enough to feed 1 million people for up to four months—is positioned at aid corridors and is ready to be brought into Gaza by WFP and food security partners as soon as borders reopen."
The program called on "all parties to prioritize the needs of civilians and allow aid to enter Gaza immediately and uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law."
The Associated Press reported that "COGAT, the Israeli military agency in charge of coordinating aid in Gaza, declined to comment on the amount of supplies remaining in the territory. It has previously said Gaza had enough aid after a surge in distribution during the cease-fire."
The WFP statement came after an Israeli drone strike that hit a food distribution center in central Gaza on Thursday and Israel's Tuesday airstrikes that destroyed several bulldozers used to clear streets and remove bodies from beneath rubble.
While humanitarian organizations have shared fresh warnings about conditions in the enclave this week—Oxfam's Clemence Lagouardat said Tuesday that "it's hard to explain just how terrible things are in Gaza at the moment"—Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's national security minister, shared violent rhetoric.
Ben-Gvir claimed that "senior Republican Party officials" whom he met at U.S. President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence "expressed support for my very clear position" that Gaza "food and aid depots should be bombed in order to create military and political pressure to bring our hostages" taken during the Hamas-led October 2023 attack on Israel.
While Trump—like his Democratic predecessor—has supported Israel's military assault, he also claimed to reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday that during a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week, "Gaza came up and I said, 'We've got to be good to Gaza... Those people are suffering.'"
According toReuters.
When asked whether he raised the issue of opening up access points for aid into Gaza, Trump replied, "We are."
"We're going to take care of that. There's a very big need for medicine, food and medicine, and we're taking care of it," he said.
Asked how Netanyahu responded, Trump said: "Felt well about it."
As for cease-fire negotiations,
Drop Site News obtained a draft proposal for a 45-day "bridge" deal that is "being pushed by Egyptian and Qatari mediators." The outlet reported Friday that "while the current proposal largely aligns with the one that Hamas agreed to on March 29 and which Israel rejected, the new terms related to disarmament and no clear path to complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza will likely meet stiff resistance from Hamas' negotiators."
