World Food Programme cuts Gaza aid for 500,000 people due to funding shortall

World Food Programme cuts Gaza aid for 500,000 people due to funding shortall Half a million people in Gaza are set to have their food aid cut as the World Food Programme warns more help is needed before winter to avoid 'malnutrition in kids and new mums' The World Food Programme (WFP) says it has been forced to cut aid for half a million people in Gaza due to funding shortages. The UN agency is one of the biggest suppliers of food to the Gaza Strip and currently helps 1.6 million people at the moment, but the WFP warned this would now drop to 1.1 million. This comes as winter approaches the war-torn territory where around two-thirds of the population rely on food aid to survive. This means the amount of food available to families suffering in the Gaza Strip will dramatically be reduced. For example, the WFP will cut the number of hot meals provided in community kitchens from 250,000 to 150,000 a day. The UN agency said the funding for its Palestinian operation has fallen by more than half from previous years , with the WFP saying it urgently needed $450m to maintain its "critical" operations in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. The WFP had been providing 1.6million people in the Gaza Strip with food parcels, wheat flour, bread, hot meals, nutrition support, school snacks and cash assistance. The agency said: "WFP no longer has sufficient funding to sustain this level of support." Families receiving food assistance will now receive only one food parcel, instead of two, and a smaller bag of wheat flour. People living in hard-to-reach areas, for example near the yellow line of Israeli military control, will receive a hot meal every other day instead of daily. The agency added that it urgently needed to provide more food assistance as winter approaches to "prevent malnutrition among young children and pregnant and breastfeeding women". Nearly all of Gaza's population of 2.1million people have been displaced since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in 2023, with many people homeless or living in refugee camps. The agency added that these funding shortfalls has also impacted its work in the West Bank, with the number of people receiving assistance halving from 400,000 to 200,000 in September. The Palestine director for the WFP, Shaun Hughes, on Gaza said: "We need to invest in recovery. This humanitarian operation isn't affordable or sustainable in the long term. "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." This comes more than a year after the Donald Trump-brokered ceasefire deal came into effect but the US President's promise to develop the Strip "to improve life for its people" has not happened. Violence has continued with the territory suffering Israeli strikes nearly daily. Food prices in Gaza remain high, even after the ceasefire, so with 80% of the population being unemployed most people cannot afford to buy food available in shops and markets in the Strip. The Palestinian Ministry of Health, last week, warned that malnutrition and starvation rates in Gaza have reached "catastrophic" levels. At least 466 Palestinians have died from either malnutrition or starvation since 2024 and estimated that 74,200 children would need treatment for acute malnutrition through to April 2027.