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World / Middle East

WFP warns food aid to Gaza insufficient to prevent starvation

Published: 29 Aug 2025 - 12:52 pm | Last Updated: 29 Aug 2025 - 12:54 pm
People try to get rice from a charity kitchen providing food for free in the west of Gaza City, on August 28, 2025. Photo by BASHAR TALEB / AFP

People try to get rice from a charity kitchen providing food for free in the west of Gaza City, on August 28, 2025. Photo by BASHAR TALEB / AFP

QNA

Rome: The World Food Program (WFP) has warned that food aid currently reaching the Gaza Strip remains far from enough to avert widespread starvation.

WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain said in press statements that the organization is now able to deliver about 100 aid trucks per day into Gaza, compared with 600 trucks daily during a two-month ceasefire that ended in mid-March.

She stressed that this amount is not nearly sufficient to ensure people are adequately nourished and protected from starvation.

McCain, who visited Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis this week - including a clinic supporting children and pregnant and lactating women - highlighted persistent challenges in delivering aid to vulnerable populations deeper inside Gaza.

"What we saw was utter devastation. It's basically flattened, and we saw people who are very seriously hungry and malnourished," McCain said.

She added that the visit underscored the urgent need for sustained access across the Strip to consistently provide essential food supplies.

A report released Friday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) - a global hunger monitoring body - found that about 514,000 people, nearly a quarter of Gaza's population, are already facing famine conditions in Gaza City and surrounding areas.

The report also warned that famine could spread to the central and southern districts of Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of September.

Israel dismissed the IPC report as "deeply flawed" and urged the body to retract it on Wednesday, reiterating its rejection of previous warnings as false and biased.