Gaza ceasefire: Surge in aid starts pulling people back from the brink of starvation

Thanks to the 19 January ceasefire and the significant influx of aid it has allowed, the risk of starvation has been pushed back in Gaza. But if the ceasefire collapses, it could return quickly.

The World Food Programme has scaled up to support Palestinians with life-saving food assistance, while restocking bakeries and providing cash to help them start rebuilding their lives while reviving the local economy. As of Thursday (13 February), WFP and partners had delivered close to 47,000 metric tons of food assistance.

“This is nearly triple what we got through in December and nearly five times more than in October,” said Antoine Renard, WFP’s Country Director for Palestine.

In the past few weeks, WFP has reached nearly 862,400 people with emergency assistance – food parcels, hot meals, wheat flour and bread bundles, providing critical supplies to breastfeeding mothers and children under 5.

The needs in Gaza are immense. WFP’s emergency response requires US$219 million over the next six months, to support up to 1.5 million people monthly. Additional donor funding is critical to sustain emergency operations and market restoration in Gaza and the West Bank in 2025. WFP is ready to send up to 30,000 tons of food each month, including food parcels.

Millions of meals

Hot-meal distribution has resumed in the north, with an initial 20,000 meals per day in Beit Lahiya, while in Rafah, another hub serves 1,500 meals a day. Across Gaza, 7 million hot meals have been served since the ceasefire, through 60 kitchens in central and southern areas. Some of these have been relocating amid the evolving needs of hundreds of thousands of people who have moved.

WFP supports 22 bakeries by supplying fuel and wheat flour to make bread affordable for communities when many staple food products are still out of people’s reach.

The cost of food products is decreasing but only incrementally. Eggs, for example, are down 50 percent on December’s prices but up to 1,200 percent higher than before the war. Similarly, wheat flour prices are up to 400 percent higher despite a steep fall in the past month.

“This is why it’s so important that the commercial sector and cash liquidity are coming back into Gaza properly,” said Renard. Cash assistance has a key role to play, he added, for WFP to “gradually move away from food handouts” to “support markets’ with fresh, nutritious products back on the store shelves, and steer up Gaza’s economy”.

WFP has scaled up to provide cash to 14,800 households, so families can meet basic needs – beyond food – as they seek to settle and start on the long journey to rebuilding their lives. We aim to reach 150,000 people in one month. For the first time since the war, we are helping people set up ‘e-wallets’ – switching from WFP voucher cards to mobile wallets owned directly by people, which enables them to access markets more easily. 

“Our goal is to transition to cash assistance as market conditions allow, empowering people to decide their own needs,” said Stuart Kent, a WFP programme officer based in Gaza. “We want to shift from emergency relief to a regular safety net in the medium term, focusing on restoring local food production and the economic systems to support it.” That would require a political solution, given Gaza’s current isolation and lack of commercial access.

Looking at all the damage, where does a humanitarian agency start to aid recovery more broadly?

“Rebuilding Gaza is beyond the reach of humanitarian actors,” Kent added. “It would require massive funding, governance, political will and the free flow of goods. Billions of dollars, government-level loans, debt relief and a long-term rebuilding effort are necessary. Our work is about keeping people alive.”

Country Director Antoine Renard said: “The ceasefire holding is paramount – not just for food but to sustain broader assistance beyond immediate relief.” He added that items such as tents, water and sanitation support, medical supplies and communications tech needed to be allowed in at scale. 

While responding to people’s immediate needs is a priority, Renard said, the world should not lose sight of the goal of fostering food security over the long term: “Before the war, eggs, fruit and vegetables were produced at scale – we must restore poultry factories, seeds and greenhouses to revive local food production and help communities get their livelihoods back.”

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