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The United Nations (UN) World Food Programme has said on Monday it will end monthly assistance to 500,000 people in Gaza due to a funding shortfall, despite acute needs in the war-battered Palestinian territory.
The United Nations agency said the cuts would leave about 1.1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gaza’s population, receiving food or cash assistance each month. However, recipients will receive smaller amounts.
Shaun Hughes, WFP’s country director, said the humanitarian situation remained severe despite some improvements following a US-brokered ceasefire announced in October 2025.
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“People are not safe. Airstrikes continue on a daily basis. People continue to be displaced,” Hughes told AFP at the agency’s office in east Jerusalem.
“Almost everybody remains without a permanent home to live in. And the humanitarian conditions are brutal,” he added.
According to the latest assessments cited by Hughes, about 1.4 million people, or two-thirds of Gaza’s population, remain acutely food insecure and need humanitarian assistance to survive. The WFP said its earlier interventions helped reduce the effects of a famine declared in Gaza last year. However, Israel disputed the famine assessment.
In August 2025, the United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) reported famine conditions in Gaza. The classification was lifted in December, two months after the ceasefire was announced.
Israel has continued military strikes in Gaza since the ceasefire began, while maintaining restrictions on goods entering the territory. Following the ceasefire, the WFP increased its operations and reached between 1.5 million and 1.8 million people each month. However, the agency said it can no longer sustain or expand the assistance because of insufficient funding.
“This has been a lifeline. But now, rather than being able to sustain and scale up that assistance, we’re actually having to reduce it,” Hughes said.
“And that’s not because we don’t have humanitarian access to deliver food; that’s because we don’t have funding,” he added.
The cuts will also affect the quantity of assistance provided to families who remain eligible. Under the revised plan, families receiving food aid will get one food parcel instead of two, alongside a smaller bag of wheat flour.
Meanwhile, the 75,000 families receiving cash assistance will see their monthly payments reduced from 1,250 shekels to 750 shekels, down from about $400 to $240.
The WFP relies on funding from governments and private donors. However, its resources have fallen sharply, including after US President Donald Trump returned to power and reduced contributions to United Nations agencies and other foreign aid programmes.
The agency said it needs about $450 million over the next six months to fund operations in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. However, it has received only about half its usual funding for the Palestinian territories in 2026.
In September, the WFP also cut the number of people receiving assistance in the West Bank by half, from 400,000 to 200,000. Hughes urged donors not to turn away from the humanitarian crisis.
“Now is not the time in the history of Palestine and Gaza to turn away from what is happening in Gaza,” he said.
The WFP said conditions in Gaza had improved moderately but warned that needs could rise again as winter approaches.
Although Israel has allowed more goods into Gaza under the ceasefire, it continues to impose restrictions on shipments it considers to have potential military uses. The United Nations has said these restrictions have affected essential items, including prosthetic limbs.
Israel has also intensified criticism of the United Nations during the war, accusing the organisation of bias and of encouraging Palestinian dependence on aid.
