Gaza: Funding cuts leave half a million without food assistance

This article is published in association with United Nations.

Funding shortages have forced the World Food Programme (WFP) to slash assistance to hungry families in the Gaza Strip by roughly one third – a move that will affect some 500,000 people as winter approaches, the UN agency announced on Monday.

WFP said that its food assistance “has provided a lifeline for up to 90 per cent of families in Gaza” over the past three years.

Since the October 2025 ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas fighters, teams have reached around 1.6 million people monthly with food parcels, wheat flour, bread, hot meals, nutrition support, school snacks and cash assistance.

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“Improved humanitarian access and delivery of assistance since October 2025 have helped reduce food insecurity, but these gains remain fragile and could quickly be reversed if humanitarian funding continues to decline,” the agency warned.

Rations, cash and hot meals reduced

This month, WFP is supporting 1.1 million of the most vulnerable people in the war-torn enclave, down from 1.6 million in September.

Rations have been cut in half, meaning families will now receive one food parcel instead of two, and a smaller bag of wheat flour.

The value of cash assistance given to 75,000 families has also been reduced, while the number of hot mails provided daily across Gaza will drop from 250,000 to 150,000.

“Families living in hard-to-reach areas, including near the ‘yellow line’ of Israeli military control, will receive a hot meal every other day instead of daily,” the agency said.

For now, WFP is able to continue supporting bakeries that cover a third of Gaza’s bread needs, provide nutrition assistance to 300,000 women and children and deliver healthy school snacks to 200,000 students.

Crisis-level hunger

The cuts come at a critical time in Gaza, where more than 80 per cent of the population is unemployed, leaving many families unable to afford fresh produce or protein-rich foods, even when they are available.

Roughly 67 per cent of Gazans –an estimated 1.4 million people – is experiencing acute food insecurity at crisis levels or worse. Although this is down from 77 per cent at the end of 2025, “improvement remains modest and fragile”, WFP said.

Some 200,000 people remain in emergency conditions and immediate food assistance is needed to prevent them from dying from hunger.

Meanwhile, only one in five children consumes a sufficiently diverse diet, and access to healthcare and other essential services remains limited.

Critical funding needs

WFP stressed that as winter approaches, additional resources are urgently needed to sustain emergency food assistance, provide critical engineering support and prevent malnutrition among young children and pregnant and breastfeeding women.

Funding for its operations in Palestine in 2026 amount to less than half received in previous years, and the agency urgently requires $450 million to maintain critical operations in Gaza and the West Bank through March.

WFP noted that funding shortages have also affected its operations in the West Bank, where the number of people receiving assistance was cut by half – from 400,000 to 200,000 – in September.