Gaza: Funding cuts leave half a million people without food aid

WFP said That Its food aid “has provided life support to 90 percent of families in Gaza” over the past three years.

Since the ceasefire agreement in October 2025 between Israel and Hamas fighters, the team has reached around 1.6 million people every month with food packages, flour, bread, hot meals, nutritional support, school snacks and cash assistance.

“Increased humanitarian access and aid delivery since October 2025 has helped reduce food insecurity, but this progress remains fragile and may not be achievable. will soon be canceled if humanitarian funding continues to decline,” the agency warned.

Rations, cash and hot food were reduced

This month, WFP provided aid to 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 halfmeaning families will now receive one food parcel instead of two, and a small bag of wheat flour.

That the value of cash assistance given to 75,000 families was also reducedwhile the number of hot mail sent daily across Gaza will fall from 250,000 to 150,000.

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

For now, WFP can continue to support bakeries that meet a third of Gaza’s bread needsproviding nutritional assistance to 300,000 women and children and providing healthy school snacks to 200,000 students.

Crisis level hunger

These cuts come at a critical time in Gaza, where more than 80 percent of the population is unemployedleaving many families unable to afford fresh produce or protein-rich foods, even when these foods are available.

Some 67 percent of Gazans – estimated at 1.4 million people – are experiencing acute food insecurity at crisis level or worse. Although this figure is down from 77 percent by the end of 2025, “development remains limited and fragile”, the WFP said.

Around 200,000 people remain in emergency conditions and immediate food aid is needed to prevent them from dying of starvation.

Meanwhile, only one in five children eats a diverse diet, and access to health care and other important services remains limited.

Critical funding needs

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

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

WFP noted that funding shortfalls were also impacting its operations in the West Bank, where the number of people receiving aid halved – from 400,000 to 200,000 – in September.