WFP says has depleted all Gaza food stocks as Israel blocks aid

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: The UN´s World Food Programme said on Friday it had depleted its food stocks in war-ravaged Gaza where Israel has blocked all aid for more than seven weeks.

After 18 months of war, the situation in Gaza “is probably the worst” now, the United Nations´ humanitarian agency OCHA said on Tuesday. WFP, one of the main providers of food assistance in Gaza, said it had “delivered its last remaining food stocks to hot meals kitchens in the Gaza Strip” on Friday.

It said “these kitchens are expected to fully run out of food in the coming days”. After blocking aid during an impasse over the future of a ceasefire with Hamas, Israel resumed its bombardment of Gaza on March 18, followed by a ground offensive.

The Hamas-run territory´s health ministry on Friday said at least 78 Palestinians had been killed over the previous 24 hours during the Israeli offensive, a relatively high one-day toll. But Gazans say they are also threatened with death from a lack of food.

Aid agencies in addition to WFP, as well as Western governments, have also voiced alarm. “We are literally dying of hunger,” Tasnim Abu Matar, a resident of Gaza City, said earlier this week.

WFP said that, “For weeks, hot meal kitchens have been the only consistent source of food assistance for people in Gaza. Despite reaching just half the population with only 25 percent of daily food needs, they have provided a critical lifeline.”

WFP added that all 25 bakeries it supports in Gaza were forced to close on March 31 as wheat flour and cooking oil ran out. “This is the longest closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced, exacerbating already fragile markets and food systems,” it said.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz last week said his country would continue preventing aid from entering Gaza because the blockade is “one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using (aid) as a tool with the population”.