UN says its food stocks in Gaza completely ‘depleted’ amid Israeli blockade

More than 400,000 people who rely on UN-supplied meals will be affected, WFP warns.

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.

‘Intolerable’

Despite the humanitarian crisis, Israel has shown no signs of reversing the blockade. Last week, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel would keep blocking aid, describing it as a tactic to “pressure” Hamas.

Israel’s military has repeatedly accused Hamas of exploiting aid – a claim the group denies – and argues it must keep all supplies out to prevent the fighters from getting it.

However, even some of Israel’s closest allies have publicly condemned the strategy. On Wednesday, Germany, France and the United Kingdom collectively called the action “intolerable” and warned that it is increasing the risk of “starvation, epidemic disease and death”.

Israeli attacks kill dozens

As the food crisis deepened, Israeli attacks continued across the war-battered enclave. At least 78 people were killed in the past 24 hours, Gaza’s Government Media Office said Friday. This included 15 victims of air raids on homes in Khan Younis, and a woman killed by a quadcopter attack near Jabalia refugee camp, according to local media reports.

Meanwhile, efforts continued to revive stalled ceasefire talks in Cairo, where a Hamas delegation was expected Friday, according to sources quoted by the Reuters news agency.

So far, the truce effort has been deadlocked, with Hamas insisting on a permanent ceasefire and Israel offering only temporary truces and demanding that Hamas disarm, something the group rejects.

Mediators are now working on a new proposal that would include a five-to-seven-year truce following the release of all captives in Gaza and an end to fighting, Reuters reported, quoting several informed sources.

Since the ceasefire collapsed on March 18, Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,900 Palestinians, many of them civilians, according to health authorities in Gaza, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced as Israel seized what it calls a buffer zone.

At least 51,439 people have been killed and 117,416 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since it began in October 2023, according to Palestinian authorities.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies