Hunger in Gaza: WFP warns ceasefire must hold up for aid surge to continue

In early January, the World Food Programme was only meeting a quarter of people’s needs in Gaza, according to Antoine Renard, WFP’s Jerusalem-based Country Director for Palestine. “Everything was stretched,” he said – “bags of wheat flour, ready-to-eat meals or boxes of foods that are people’s staples.”  

Within four weeks of the ceasefire of 19 January, WFP delivered “more food aid than we thought possible”, doubling the monthly average for the last months of 2024, with more than 30,000 metric tons, reaching 1 million people. 

While this is not a first, it’s significant that “we are approaching full rations, proper calorie intake, and a complete food basket,” Renard said. “Every WFP programme is running at scale – food parcels, wheat flour, hot meals, nutrition support.” 

More than 116,500 pregnant women, nursing mothers, and young children have received nutritional supplements, while non-food essentials such as tents and tarpaulins are making it into Gaza through the Logistics Cluster – a multiagency coordination mechanism led by WFP.  

Making sure bakeries have everything they need to operate is key. In the north and middle areas of the strip, 25 bakeries are producing 150,000 bundles of flatbread a day – five times more than before the ceasefire. 

“Some of the bakeries are running 22 hours a day,” said Renard. “They also supply bread to retailers”. For this to be sustainable, however, “we need commercial supply to stabilize.”

Pointing to WFP’s support to bakers with raw materials such as flour, Renard added: “Since commercial supply chains haven’t been properly restored, we’re stepping in to keep things running.” 

“The ceasefire must hold for markets to stabilize,” said Renard, adding that Gaza needs to see commercial goods coming in formally so that the commercial sector can be restored. Markets are finding their feet with the arrival of more commodities, but it’s not enough. 

And though prices have fallen, they are still 100-200 percent above pre-conflict levels – people can still not access basic fresh commodities because of lack of availability and affordability.  

For the first time since November 2023, WFP has expanded cash assistance in Gaza (bakeries and carefully targeted cash go “hand in hand”). “People are buying bread, which helps sustain a functioning market system,” said Renard. And while “there is no additional cash liquidity in Gaza in that there is no ‘new’ physical cash coming … digital payments are growing.” 

WFP would like to halve the number of people receiving in-kind assistance by the end of the year by switching to mobile phone-linked e-wallets, so people have a choice in buying the essentials they need. However, that remains a dim prospect when so many “don’t have gas, don’t have homes”.

Then there’s the issue of reconstruction. “A ceasefire is one thing, but what does rebuilding look like? There are unexploded ordnances everywhere. So much has been wiped out in agriculture – poultry, farming fruit and vegetables.” 

Along with rebuilding damaged roads, a starting point for WFP might be the restoration of mills and food processing plants, which assessments suggest is “doable” 

Renard was in Gaza when the ceasefire was announced. “For the first time since the start of the war, people weren’t fearing for their lives,” he said. “But now that uncertainty is creeping back… 16 months without a single day where a bomb didn’t explode nearby. That’s very difficult to explain to anyone because it’s unprecedented.” 

Renard emphasized the importance of continuing the current surge. “The ceasefire must hold, and all border crossings must remain open and operational at full capacity. There can be no going back.”

West Bank in focus

“If Gaza wasn’t dominating attention, the world would be talking about how fast the situation in the West Bank is deteriorating,” said Renard. There are tanks in the West Bank for the first time since 2002, while 40,000 people living in the refugee camps of Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams have been displaced. 

WFP’s scaled up seven times since the start of the war in the West Bank: “The big concern is avoiding a market collapse. If that happens, it’s a different ballgame – we’re talking about 3 million people losing access to their basic livelihoods.” 

Currently, WFP is providing food vouchers to nearly 200,000 of the poorest people to top up the low value provided through the existing national safety net. We have also provided a one-off cash distribution to 5,000 people recently displaced from camps across the north of the West Bank. 

In terms of complexity, “the West Bank is different from Gaza – you have mixed populations, with Palestinians and Israelis living side by side, as well as settlers.” For now, “the economy is still integrated. People can buy food. Let’s hope it stays that way.”  

WFP needs US$254 million over the next six months to provide emergency assistance for up to 1.4 million people in Gaza and the West Bank. 

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