World Food Programme drops 500,000 Gazans from aid lists

The World Food Programme said it is dropping 500,000 people in Gaza from its monthly aid lists, because its funding has run short.

The agency will now assist 1.1 million people instead of 1.6 million. That number still covers about half of the people living in the territory.

Country director Shaun Hughes said the agency has now cut half a million people from assistance.

Smaller rations for families

Rations are shrinking too. A family that used to get two food parcels will now receive one, and flour bags are smaller, with parcels cut by 40 percent.

The agency also lowers cash help by 40 percent for 75,000 families. Aid moves mostly through e-wallets, because little cash circulates in Gaza.

Daily hot meals for people who cannot cook fall to 150,000 from 250,000. In hard-to-reach areas, including those near the yellow line, hot meals now arrive every other day.

Why the World Food Programme cut aid

Acting executive director Carl Skau said the cause is money, not need or access. Food can still enter Gaza, he said, but the funding is no longer there.

The agency says it must raise $450 million within six months to keep its key operations going in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Skau spoke after visiting the territory. He warned that cuts at the start of winter will deepen hunger, and where hunger spreads, instability follows.

“Life is still brutal here,” he said, a year after the ceasefire. He pointed to a lack of shelter, services and security.

A territory still in crisis

Around 1.4 million people, or two out of every three residents, face crisis-level hunger or worse. About 200,000 of them are in emergency conditions.

The ceasefire, brokered by the US last year, calls for the territory’s eventual reconstruction. Yet progress on a wider deal has been slow, since the plan asks Hamas to disarm and Israel to pull back its troops.

Residents say the cuts worry them. Khaled, a 53-year-old father of seven, said his family relies entirely on the agency’s food help.

Fatima Mohamed, a 38-year-old widow with three children and no income, said she depends on parcels and cash payments.

With fewer community kitchens open, Khaled said, people count on the agency more than ever.

In a rare interview after his visit, Skau said he worries about cutting help for half a million people just as winter arrives. The World Food Programme is trimming its caseload by a third.

He said food exists in Gaza, but not the right kinds. Restrictions on goods entering the territory still slow recovery, he added, so available money buys less than it could.

The agency’s own market monitor for September found that 44 percent of households cannot afford basic food. It also found that the same proportion of Palestinians slept hungry on at least one night in a month.

Since the ceasefire, aid operations are less risky than before. The UN lifted its famine declaration for Gaza in December, though Israeli authorities say aid flows daily and the situation is stable.

Skau urged donors to step up. “This is not the time to look away,” he said.

For Gaza’s families, the World Food Programme cuts arrive just as the fourth winter of the war begins.