Gaza Faces Worst Crisis Yet As Food Runs Out, Aid Blocked: ‘Kitchens Expected To Fully Run Out…’

<p data-pm-slice=”0 0 []”>The United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA said that after 18 months of war, the situation in Gaza “is probably the worst” now. According to RFI, WFP said that it had “delivered its last remaining food stocks to hot meals kitchens in the Gaza Strip” on Friday. WFP is one of the main providers of food assistance in Gaza.</p>
<p>It said that “these kitchens are expected to fully run out of food in the coming days”.</p>
<p>Israel, after blocking aid during an impasse over the future of a ceasefire with Hamas, resumed its bombardment of Gaza on March 18, followed by a ground offensive.</p>
<p>According to news reports, the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry on Friday said that at least 78 Palestinians had been killed over the previous 24 hours during the Israeli offensive, a relatively high one-day toll.</p>
<p>But Gazans say they are also threatened with death from a lack of food.</p>
<p>Aid agencies in addition to WFP, as well as Western governments, have also voiced alarm.</p>
<p>”We are literally dying of hunger,” Tasnim Abu Matar, a resident of Gaza City, said earlier this week.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>WFP also said that all the 25 bakeries it supports in Gaza were forced to be closed on March 31 as the wheat flour and cooking oil ran out.</p>
<p>”This is the longest closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced, exacerbating already fragile markets and food systems,” it said.</p>
<p>Last week, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said that his country would continue preventing aid from entering Gaza, as the blockade is “one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using [aid] as a tool with the population”.</p>
<p>Germany, France, and Britain have called for an end to the blockade and warned of “an acute risk of starvation, epidemic disease and death”.</p>
<p>”The Israeli decision to block aid from entering Gaza is intolerable,” their three foreign ministers said.</p>
<p>According to AFP count based on official Israeli figures, the Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel that began the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people.</p>