WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME CUTS MONTHLY GAZA AID FOR 500,000 PEOPLE

The World Food Programme said on Monday that a funding shortfall had forced it to end monthly food assistance for about 500,000 people in Gaza. The UN agency now provides food or cash each month to about 1.1 million Palestinians, down from roughly 1.6 million. Families who retain food assistance will receive one parcel instead of two and a smaller bag of wheat flour. The WFP has also reduced monthly cash payments for 75,000 families from 1,250 to 750 shekels.

The WFP said it had cut the number of daily hot meals from 250,000 to 150,000. Some families in areas that aid workers struggle to reach now receive a hot meal every other day. Its assessments put about 1.4 million people, or two-thirds of Gaza’s population, at crisis levels of food insecurity or worse, including about 200,000 at emergency levels. Since the October 2025 ceasefire, the agency had reached between 1.5 million and 1.8 million people a month. “This has been a lifeline,” WFP country director Shaun Hughes said.

Hughes said the cuts reflected a lack of funding rather than a lack of access to deliver food. The WFP says it needs about $450 million over the next six months for Gaza and the West Bank, and has received around half its usual funding for the Palestinian territories this year. In September, it halved the number of people it assists in the West Bank to 200,000. The agency warned that food needs in Gaza could rise again as winter approaches. WFP acting executive director Carl Skau said people in Gaza still lacked proper shelter and basic services.