UN food program funding cuts force group to slash aid to Gazans already struggling to eat

Thomson Reuters

· Posted: Oct 19, 2026 3:42 PM EDT | Last Updated: 12 minutes ago

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) says ‌funding shortages are forcing major cuts to its aid program in Gaza, leaving about 500,000 people without monthly food support in a territory where two-thirds of the population already struggle to get enough to eat.

The WFP said it was reducing the number of recipients of its monthly assistance to 1.1 million ​people from 1.6 million.

In addition, food rations have been halved, cash ​assistance has been cut for 75,000 families, and the number of daily hot meals for those unable to cook has fallen from 250,000 to to 150,000, with some families in hard-to-reach areas now ​receiving a hot meal only every other day.

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The WFP said about 1.4 million people, or ⁠two-thirds of Gaza's population, face crisis ⁠levels of food insecurity or worse, including roughly 200,000 ‌people in emergency conditions.

Last year's U.S.-brokered Gaza ceasefire calls for the eventual reconstruction of the territory. But little progress has been made toward implementing the deal to end the conflict that includes terms for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw its troops.

Carl Skau, acting executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), centre, visits a soup kitchen in Gaza Sunday. The program is being forced to slash aid to the territory due to funding cuts. (Mahmoud Issa/Reuters)

Life still 'brutal' in Gaza

"It's a year into the agreement of this ceasefire. Well, life is still brutal here. There is no proper shelter … no basic services. There is no safety, no security," Carl Skau, the acting executive director of the WFP, told Reuters in ‌Gaza.

"These cuts are happening just as we are facing the fourth winter," he said. "I've been through the winters here, absolutely brutal."

The WFP said it urgently needs $450 million US over the next six months to maintain critical operations in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

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"We tell the world now is not ​the time to look away. This is the time to step up to sustain this support, to protect the progress that has been made, but also to ⁠push for early recovery," said Skau.

Israeli forces still hold more than 60 per cent of the territory and conduct almost daily airstrikes, ⁠while Hamas controls much of the area where more than two million Palestinians live, mostly in temporary shelters with ⁠what ⁠aid agencies call inadequate aid supplies.

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The Hamas-run Gaza ​government media office described the WFP announcement as "catastrophic" and said it might accelerate famine in the enclave, calling for more funding ​to aid agencies to prevent it.

"On ⁠top of the circumstances and the difficult life, you want to make it even harder on us," said Palestinian Sabrine Kuhail, standing by a tent shelter at a displacement site in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza Strip.

"You made us hungry for three years with war, destruction, siege and the bloodshed that is not stopping. What do you want from us? Enough, enough, ⁠we are tired."