WFP ends support for over half a million Palestinians in Gaza

Two-thirds face crisis food insecurity; 200,000 at emergency levels

The UN World Food Programme has been forced to end support for more than half a million Palestinians in Gaza each month, scaling back operations that as recently as this summer fed about three-quarters of the territory’s population. The cuts come as winter approaches and as funding has fallen by more than half from 2025 levels.

WFP programs had reached roughly 1.6 million people in Gaza this summer, the agency said. Beginning in October, that monthly figure has been reduced to about 1.1 million. The reductions have rolled out across deliveries of ration boxes, cash stipends to buy food in markets, and hot meals from community kitchens.

“These are very fragile gains, easily reversed, and the situation is still brutal,” said Shaun Hughes, the WFP’s representative and country director for Palestine.

Two-thirds of Gaza’s population now face crisis levels of food insecurity — phase three under the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the system used to assess whether a population is approaching famine. Another 200,000 Palestinians are at emergency levels, or phase four, meaning immediate humanitarian supplies are needed to prevent deaths from hunger, according to Hughes. Phase four is one step below famine conditions.

The crisis extends to Gaza’s children. One in eight children in the territory are chronically malnourished or stunted, a recent UNICEF survey found, with possible permanent damage. Young children and their mothers are particularly vulnerable after years of food shortages, the survey found.

Gaza’s own economy remains unable to feed its population. About 80% of residents are unemployed, according to UN data. Before the war, Gaza was self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables, but the vast majority of farmland has been occupied by Israel’s military, and the sophisticated greenhouse and irrigation systems that supported agricultural production have been destroyed. Fish has historically been a key source of protein, but the Israeli navy bars fishing boats from waters off the coast.

The agency needs more than £300 million over the next six months to restore and maintain critical programs in Palestine. Even an influx of cash may not allow the organization to immediately reverse the cuts — sourcing and shipping the ingredients for ration boxes can take about three months, and reductions in cash transfers may already be affecting supply chains. The injection of more than £30 million a month has “underpinned purchasing power for the private sector in Gaza,” allowing trucks to come in with relatively expensive shipments of both healthy and unhealthy food, Hughes said.

For now, WFP has tried to limit the damage by scaling back programs rather than eliminating them entirely. Families who receive ration boxes now get one rather than two. Community kitchen hot meals have been delivered every other day in October. But even limited reductions are pushing the most destitute families back toward dangerous levels of malnutrition. “There’s only so far you can cut [support] until you don’t have the food security impact at the household level,” Hughes said.

Israeli controls on shipments into Gaza compound the funding shortfalls by making humanitarian work particularly expensive compared with other parts of the world. Limits on fuel, engine oil and spare parts, and complex shipping restrictions push up transport time and costs. Mass destruction of buildings by airstrikes has left warehouse space limited and costly.

For three years, Israeli restrictions on aid shipments have been the main driver of hunger and malnutrition in Gaza, with food entry restricted or entirely barred for months at a time. Now, for the first time since October 2023, a lack of funds may also become an obstacle to feeding hungry Palestinians, according to WFP.

The agency is monitoring “negative coping strategies” — whether people have skipped meals or are seeking exploitative and dangerous work — to direct remaining food to the most vulnerable.

Residents of Gaza described already feeling the impact of the cuts. Alaa Sarhan, 40, a former paramedic injured by Israeli attacks nearly two decades ago, lives with his wife and five children aged four to 16 in a tent near the “yellow line,” the marker of Israeli control. His disability benefits buy very little, he said.

“In recent days, we have had to plan our meals around what is available rather than what we want to eat,” Sarhan said. “Often, I give up my share of food so my children can eat. I got accustomed to doing this because the most important thing is that they have something to eat.”

Nesreen Muqayed, 50, lives with her husband, four children and two grandchildren. She needs a regular diet to manage kidney problems, and a grandson who is on the autism spectrum cannot tolerate many foods. Despite these urgent medical needs, the family often goes hungry, she said.

“Sometimes we try to save part of a meal for breakfast because we do not know whether we will have anything to eat the following day,” Muqayed said. “The situation has become more difficult over the past two weeks.” Hot meals from community kitchens that make up a large part of their diet have only been delivered every other day in October, and the family’s meagre backup supplies are already running out.

“I used the last of our flour yesterday,” Muqayed said. Beyond grappling with daily hunger, she finds it painful denying her children healthy food they want and need for their development, because they cannot even afford bananas.

“Sometimes I pass a fruit seller and look at what he has on display, but I do not have the money to buy,” she said. “Fruit and vegetables have become luxuries that we cannot afford regularly, even though they are basic necessities that every family should be able to access.”

A year of large aid shipments ended a famine declared in summer 2025 and reduced the most severe hunger in the territory, according to WFP. More than a year after a Trump-brokered ceasefire came into force, promised reconstruction has not begun, there are few jobs and the vast majority in Gaza still rely on aid to eat. Humanitarian aid will be needed at scale until Israel and the international community launch the large-scale reconstruction promised last year.

“We need to invest in recovery. This humanitarian operation isn’t affordable or sustainable in the long term,” Hughes said. “Ultimately that’s also what everyone in Gaza is telling us. They really don’t want to be reliant on these handouts, don’t want to stand in the hot meals queue every day. They want to have some chance of stability and recovery.”