Funding shortages force World Food Programme to cut aid to Gaza
The number of people helped by the UN agency in the Palestinian territory will drop by about a third - from 1.6 million to 1.1 million.
Key points
- The World Food Programme is cutting aid to Gaza because of funding shortages, reducing recipients from 1.6 million to 1.1 million.
- Daily hot meals from community kitchens will fall from 250,000 to 150,000.
- The WFP says it urgently needs $450m to maintain critical operations over the next six months.
The World Food Programme says funding shortages are forcing it to sharply reduce food aid in the Gaza Strip. The number of people it helps will fall by about a third, from 1.6 million to 1.1 million, as winter approaches.
The UN agency says daily hot meals from community kitchens will drop from 250,000 to 150,000. Families in hard-to-reach areas, including near the so-called Yellow Line marking Israel's area of military control, will get a meal every other day instead of daily.
Families describe impact
Displaced families told the BBC the cuts will hit hard. Mervat al-Satari, a mother of five in al-Mawasi in Khan Younis, called the news a disaster and asked how she would provide for her children.
Sawsan Bahloul, a mother of three from al-Mawasi, said the daily aid was already too small for her family and that moving to every two days would affect them a lot. Dalal al-Dahdouh, living in the ruins of her Gaza City home with eight family members, said the flour and food boxes were already insufficient.
It's a disaster! What will we do with these reduced rations? How will we provide for the little ones?
— Mervat al-Satari
Funding and food insecurity
The WFP's Palestine director, Shaun Hughes, said the cuts are due to finances, "not because the needs are coming down, or because we don't have access - we do." The agency received less than half as much funding for its Palestinian operations in 2026 as in previous years and says it urgently needs $450m for the next six months.
Monthly flour and ration boxes will fall from 1.1 million to 600,000 people. Nearly all of Gaza's 2.1 million residents are displaced and two-thirds rely on food aid. In July, the IPC reported that 1.4 million people were expected to face crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity in July-December 2026.
