GAZA CITY: The UN’s World Food Programme on Friday said its food stocks in war-hit Gaza have been depleted due to Israel’s continued blocking of all humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory.
“Today, WFP delivered its last remaining food stocks to hot meal kitchens in the Gaza Strip. These kitchens are expected to fully run out of food in the coming days,” WFP said in a statement.
The United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA on Tuesday said After 18 months of war, the situation in Gaza “is probably the worst” now. The WFP is one of the main providers of food in Gaza.
The health ministry in Gaza on Friday said at least 78 Palestinians had been killed over the last 24 hours during the Israeli offensive. However, Gazans say they also face the threat of death from severe food shortages.
“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 percent of daily food needs, they have provided a critical lifeline,” WFP said.
The WFP reported that all 25 bakeries it supports in Gaza were forced to shut down on March 31 due to a lack of wheat flour and cooking oil.
“This is the longest closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced, exacerbating already fragile markets and food systems,” it said.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz last week said his country would continue preventing aid from entering Gaza because the blockade is “one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using (aid) as a tool with the population”.
Germany, France, and Britain on Wednesday called for an end to the blockade and warned of “an acute risk of starvation, epidemic disease, and death”. “The Israeli decision to block aid from entering Gaza is intolerable,” their three foreign ministers said.
Israel resumed its military assault in the Gaza Strip on March 18, after the collapse of a two-month ceasefire that had brought a temporary halt to fighting in the besieged Palestinian territory.
At least 51,439 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in an Israeli onslaught since October 2023, most of them women and children.
