UN's World Food Porgramme says Gaza has only 'two weeks' worth of food left

The UN’s World Food Programme warned Thursday it had only two weeks’ worth of food left in Gaza, where “hundreds of thousands of people” are at risk of severe hunger and malnutrition.

“WFP has approximately 5,700 tons of food stocks left in Gaza – enough to support WFP operations for a maximum of two weeks,” the Rome-based agency said in a statement.

Israel resumed military operations in the Palestinian territory just over a week ago, shattering weeks of relative calm brought by a fragile ceasefire.

The United Nations said on Wednesday that the renewed Israeli operations had displaced 142,000 people in just seven days, and warned of dwindling supplies after Israel resumed a block on humanitarian aid entering Gaza.

WFP said Thursday that it and others in the food security sector had been “unable to bring new food supplies into Gaza for more than three weeks”.

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“Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza are again at risk of severe hunger and malnutrition as humanitarian food stocks in the Strip dwindle and borders remain closed to aid,” it said.

“Meanwhile, the expansion of military activity in Gaza is severely disrupting food assistance operations and putting the lives of aid workers at risk every day”, WFP added.

The agency said that due to the deteriorating security situation and rapid displacement of people, it will “distribute as much food as possible, as quickly as possible”.

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It is reducing individual rations so the agency can feed more people overall. It plans to distribute food parcels to half a million people, meaning the packages will feed a family for roughly one week, it said.

Israeli officials say the new operations are meant to pressure Hamas, which controls Gaza, into releasing the remaining hostages following a stalemate in talks with mediators on extending the truce.

Of the 251 hostages seized during the Islamist group’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which triggered the war, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

The attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 50,208 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry.