GAZA: The UN's World Food Programme warned on Thursday it had only two weeks' worth of food left in Gaza, where "hundreds of thousands of people" are at risk of severe hunger and malnutrition.
"WFP has approximately 5,700 tonnes of food stocks left in Gaza -- enough to support WFP operations for a maximum of two weeks," the Rome-based agency said in a statement.
Israel resumed military operations in the Palestinian territory just over a week ago, shattering weeks of relative calm brought by a fragile ceasefire.
The United Nations said on Wednesday that the renewed Israeli operations had displaced 142,000 people in just seven days, and warned of dwindling supplies after Israel resumed a block on humanitarian aid entering Gaza.
WFP said on Thursday that it and others in the food security sector had been "unable to bring new food supplies into Gaza for more than three weeks".
"Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza are again at risk of severe hunger and malnutrition as humanitarian food stocks in the Strip dwindle and borders remain closed to aid," it said.
"Meanwhile, the expansion of military activity in Gaza is severely disrupting food assistance operations and putting the lives of aid workers at risk every day," WFP added.
The agency said that due to the deteriorating security situation and rapid displacement of people, it will "distribute as much food as possible, as quickly as possible".
It is reducing individual rations so the agency can feed more people overall. It plans to distribute food parcels to half a million people, meaning the packages will feed a family for roughly one week, it said.
Israeli officials say the new operations are meant to pressure Hamas, which controls Gaza, into releasing the remaining hostages following a stalemate in talks with mediators on extending the truce.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Thursday that 855 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since Israel resumed large-scale strikes on March 18.
According to the ministry's statement, the figure included 25 people killed in the past 24 hours. It also reported that the overall death toll had reached 50,208 since the war began on October 7, 2023. — AFP
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