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World Food Programme Gaza: aid cuts end support for half a million people
The World Food Programme in Gaza has ended support for more than half a million people each month because of aid cuts, its Palestine director said, more than a year after a ceasefire took effect.
By Haut Monde Post
• October 19, 2026
• 5 Min Read
Sweeping funding shortfalls have pushed the World Food Programme in Gaza to withdraw assistance from more than half a million people every month, according to the UN agency's own leadership. The announcement comes with reconstruction stalled and most of the territory's residents still dependent on outside help.
The scale-back affects ration boxes, cash stipends and hot meals served at community kitchens, and it marks a turning point in how Gaza's hunger crisis is being driven.
Funding falls by more than half
At the height of its operation in summer 2026, WFP programmes were feeding roughly 1.6 million people - three-quarters of Gaza's population. Since then, funding has dropped by more than half compared with 2025 levels.
- •From October, assistance reaches only 1.1 million people per month.
- •Families who receive ration boxes now get one box rather than two, as the agency scales back programmes rather than ending them outright.
- •The WFP says it needs more than £300m over the next six months to restore and maintain its critical programmes in Palestine.
- •For the first time since October 2023, a shortage of money - rather than restrictions on aid entering the territory - may become the obstacle to feeding people.
Until now, Israeli limits on aid shipments had been the main driver of hunger, with food entry restricted or completely barred for months at a time.
'Very fragile gains'
Shaun Hughes, the WFP's representative and country director for Palestine, described the situation in stark terms.
"These are very fragile gains, easily reversed, and the situation is still brutal," said Shaun Hughes.
His assessment follows a year of large aid shipments that ended a famine declared in summer 2025 and eased the worst hunger. Most families, however, still cannot feed themselves without handouts.
Hughes argued that reducing rations has a floor beyond which the poorest households simply lose their food security.
"There's only so far you can cut [support] until you don't have the food security impact at the household level."
He also pointed out that the monthly injection of more than £30m into the local economy had, in his words, "underpinned purchasing power for the private sector in Gaza".
Hunger levels and daily life
Two-thirds of Gaza's population faces crisis-level food insecurity, classified as IPC phase three, while 200,000 people are at emergency level - IPC phase four - a single step from famine.
A recent Unicef survey found that one in eight children in Gaza is chronically malnourished or stunted, and may have suffered permanent harm as a result. With about 80% of the population unemployed, according to UN data, most people have no way to buy food for their families.
Residents describe the squeeze in everyday terms. Alaa Sarhan, 40, a former paramedic who lives with his wife and five children aged four to 16 in a tent near the "yellow line", said the family's eating habits have changed.
"In recent days, we have had to plan our meals around what is available rather than what we want to eat," he said.
Sarhan said he often gives up his share of food so his children can eat.
Nesreen Muqayed, 50, who has kidney problems and a grandson on the autism spectrum, said her family often goes hungry and that conditions worsened over the past two weeks.
"The situation has become more difficult over the past two weeks."
Her community-kitchen hot meals were delivered only every other day in October, and she has run through her supplies.
"I used the last of our flour yesterday," she said.
She cannot afford fruit such as bananas.
Why recovery, not handouts
The WFP argues that emergency aid alone cannot solve the problem, and that investment in recovery is what Gaza needs.
"We need to invest in recovery. This humanitarian operation isn't affordable or sustainable in the long term," Hughes said.
He noted that Gazans do not want to depend on handouts indefinitely. Yet the path back to self-sufficiency faces steep barriers. Gaza was once self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables, but the vast majority of its farmland has been occupied by Israel's military, and greenhouse and irrigation systems have been destroyed. The Israeli navy bars fishing boats from waters off the coast, cutting off what was historically a source of protein.
Running the aid operation itself is also becoming more expensive. Israeli controls on fuel, engine oil and spare parts, along with complex and opaque shipping rules, push up transport time and costs, while destroyed buildings make warehouse space limited and costly.
The agency watches what it calls "negative coping strategies" - whether people have skipped meals or taken on dangerous or exploitative work - to identify those most in need.
Even if new funding arrived tomorrow, the cuts would not reverse quickly: sourcing and shipping the ingredients for ration boxes takes about three months. For now, the families relying on those boxes are receiving one where they once received two.
