Location: Palestine, State of
WFP delivered desperately needed food to more than 120,000 people in Gaza during the initial pause in fighting but has reiterated that the supplies it was able to provide were woefully inadequate to address the level of hunger seen by staff in the UN shelters and communities.
Nearly the entire population of Gaza is in desperate need of food assistance, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today.
WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain issued an urgent plea from the Rafah border crossing for safe, expanded humanitarian access to Gaza as humanitarian needs skyrocket and critical food supplies reach dangerously low levels.
One WFP employee describes the horror, the grief, her dreams for a better future, and why her work must go on in the face of it all.
Thousands of civilians on Sunday morning stormed a UN-run warehouse in Gaza’s middle area, where WFP is storing some food commodities.
The catastrophic conditions facing hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza risk getting worse still, due to severe fuel shortages which threaten to bring food and other humanitarian operations to a standstill.
WFP welcomed today’s opening of the border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, which enabled a first convoy of trucks to bring in urgently needed food, water and other supplies for hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza.
WFP is stockpiling 310 metric tons of food at the Gaza border ready for dispatch to people in desperate need – as soon as humanitarian access is granted.
As humanitarian supplies converged on Egypt’s border with Gaza, WFP renewed its call for sustained humanitarian access to Gaza.
“The situation is devastating,” said Samer Abdeljaber, WFP Palestine Country Director. “We are on the ground doing everything we can."
WFP calls on all parties to uphold the principles of humanitarian law to safeguard the lives and well-being of civilians, including access to food.
Conflict ravages countries in countless ways. And it’s the number one cause of hunger in the world, tearing families, communities, infrastructure, food systems and regions apart.