Bakery in Deir el-Balah, Gaza. UN humanitarian agencies deliver one million food parcels to Gaza Humanitarian aid
Food is gradually returning to the shelves in Gaza, but it remains insufficient, UN officials said Tuesday, reiterating calls for increased humanitarian access and continued financial support for aid organizations.
Hundreds of thousands of people returned last month to northern Gaza, where famine was declared in late August, according to UN World Food Program (WFP) spokeswoman Abir Etefa. Their access to food remains limited.
Many of those who returned found their homes destroyed and those displaced in the south “often living in tents, without access to food and basic services,” Etefa added. She works at the runway in Cairo.
Etefa noted that 3.5 weeks after the truce began, WFP was able to deliver food packages to approximately a million people in Gaza. A total of 1.6 million people are due to receive them.
“Supplies are still limited, so each family receives a reduced ration of one food package for ten days,” she explained.
To expand humanitarian operations to the level needed, WFP needs, in her words, “more open border crossings and… the ability to use key roads inside Gaza.”
All border crossings must be opened
As reported by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), since September 12, not a single food convoy has reached the north of the strip directly through the border crossings. transitions.
“Only two border crossings remain operational: Kerem Shalom in the south of the enclave and Kissufim in central Gaza,” Etefa said. “This severely limits the amount of assistance that WFP and other agencies can deliver to stabilize the market and meet the needs of the population,” she added.
She noted, that the lack of access through northern crossings forces aid convoys to take a “slow and difficult route from the south.”
According to WFP, about 700,000 people receive fresh bread daily through 17 agency-supported bakeries—nine in the south-central region and eight in the north. The goal is to increase the number of bakeries serving the population to 25.
“This help is really important”
WFP worker Nour Hammad, who is now in Gaza, said she is seeing “apocalyptic scenes” throughout the enclave, and on people’s faces she sees both joy and fear. In recent days, people have been saying one thing: this help is really important,” she said. After months of “stretching one meal out over several days,” they are finally receiving fresh bread, food parcels and cash transfers.
“This begins the road to recovery,” Hammad said.
Currently, 200,000 Gazans are receiving digital cash transfers, allowing them to supplement food assistance with fresh, locally sourced food markets. However, prices there remain very high.
“Food is gradually returning to the shelves, but prices are still unaffordable for most families,” she explained. “After all, people have exhausted all resources trying to survive during two years of war. Today, for example, I buy one apple for the price that used to correspond to the cost of a kilogram.”
The fragility of the truce and the instability of aid flows, she said, remain the main sources of anxiety for Gazans. Hammad told the story of a displaced mother she met in the enclave: although the family receives humanitarian aid, the woman forbids the children to eat all the food at once because “I’m not sure if there will be food tomorrow.”