UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the food situation remains “very critical” since Israel closed all crossings into Gaza a month ago, cutting off all humanitarian deliveries.
The World Food Programme is closing all its remaining bakeries in Gaza, citing dwindling supplies after Israel cut off all food, medicine, fuel and humanitarian aid nearly a month ago.
the UN agency said that due to the lack of humanitarian aid, its supplies are running out and it doesn’t have enough wheat flour needed to make bread.
The agency said it’s distributed all available food rations, and there are unfortunately no more stocks.
Aid workers have stretched supplies, but warn of a catastrophic surge in severe hunger and malnutrition.
The Israeli military body in charge of Palestinian affairs, known as COGAT, said more than 25,000 trucks entered Gaza during the ceasefire, carrying nearly 450,000 tons of aid. It said the amount represented around a third of what has entered during the war.
“There is enough food for a long period of time, if Hamas lets the civilians have it,” it said.
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the assertion was “ridiculous,” calling the food shortage very critical. The organisation is “at the tail end of our supplies” and a lack of flour and cooking oil are forcing the bakeries to close, he said, adding that “WFP doesn’t close its bakeries for fun.”
UN agencies and aid groups say they struggled to bring in and distribute aid before the ceasefire took hold in January. Their estimates for how much aid reached people in Gaza were consistently lower than COGAT’s, which were based on how much entered through border crossings.
Gaza is heavily reliant on international aid because the war has destroyed almost all of its food production capability.
Mohammed al-Kurd, a father of 12, said his children go to bed without dinner.
“We tell them to be patient and that we will bring flour in the morning,” he said. “We lie to them and to ourselves.”
This is Israel’s longest blockade yet of the 17-month war with Hamas, with no sign of it ending.
UN humanitarians express shock at killing of colleagues in Gaza
UN humanitarians from several organisations expressed shock at the killing of 15 colleagues on duty in southern Gaza whose remains were recovered from a shallow grave after a week-long rescue operation, noting that one worker is still missing.
“These people were shot,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN aid coordination office, OCHA.
“Normally we are not at a loss for words and we are spokespeople, but sometimes we have difficulty finding them. This is one of those cases,” he told journalists in Geneva, referring to video footage taken near Tal-As-Sultan by an OCHA rescue party showing a crushed UN vehicle, ambulances and a fire truck that had been flattened and buried in the sand by the Israeli military.
The clearly identified humanitarian workers from the Palestine Red Crescent Society, Palestinian Civil Defence and the UN Palestine refugee agency, UNRWA, had been dispatched to collect injured people on 23 March in the Rafah area.
They came under fire from Israeli forces who were advancing in the area, OCHA’s top official in the Palestinian Occupied Territory said, in a detailed post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
James Elder, spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, condemned “unprecedented breaches” of international humanitarian law (IHL) in Gaza linked to the resumption of Israeli bombardment and ground operations inside the shattered enclave.
“Sheer will doesn’t get you to survive when we see breach after breach of IHL (international humanitarian law), breach after breach of restricting aid,” the UNICEF spokesperson added.
