THE UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) says its food stocks in Gaza are completely depleted, as Israel’s aid blockade continues for an eighth week.
In a statement on Friday, the WFP confirmed it had “delivered its last remaining food stocks” in Gaza to local kitchens, which it anticipates will run out of food entirely “in the coming days”.
More than 400,000 people in Gaza rely on WFP aid, leaving them with little recourse if this lifeline fails, the organisation’s Palestine representative Antoine Renard told Al Jazeera.
“We [local NGOs] are all running short,” he said. “We are being depleted.”
Since March 2, Israel has fully blocked all aid supplies, including food, medicine and fuel from entering Gaza, defying a 2024 World Court order to facilitate the entry of humanitarian assistance.
Food stockpiled during a nearly two-month ceasefire earlier this year has largely been exhausted, while prices for what little food is left on the open market have surged by 1,400 percent, according to the WFP.
Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said hunger and malnutrition were widespread.
“People are hungry. They’re already rationing supplies,” he said. “It’s not just the organisations, it’s also families running out of supplies.”
It’s “hard to imagine” how hundreds of thousands of families who have relied on daily meals provided by the WFP are “going to get by”, he added.
Gaza’s Government Media Office has warned the dwindling food supplies could push “thousands of Palestinian families” into starvation.
It reported that 52 people, including 50 children, have already died due to hunger and malnutrition, while more than one million children go hungry every day.
