The United Nations World Food Programme is scaling back food assistance across Gaza, cutting the number of people it reaches each month from 1.6 million to 1.1 million — a reduction of 500,000 people — as a funding shortfall collides with the start of winter rain.
The cuts run through the whole operation: daily hot meals fall from 250,000 to 150,000, and monthly flour and food-box distributions drop from 1.1 million people to 600,000. WFP's Palestine director, Shaun Hughes, stressed that the reductions are driven by money, not by falling need, and that the agency needs about $450 million to sustain operations over the next six months.
The timing is especially harsh. Roughly two-thirds of Gaza's population faces acute food insecurity, and the first winter rains are beginning to fall on families living in tents and damaged buildings, where cold and flooding compound the effects of hunger.
Aid agencies warn that without new donor funding quickly, the reduced rations will translate into missed meals for hundreds of thousands of people through the winter months, and are pressing governments to close the gap before the coldest weather arrives.
