No food aid entered northern Gaza for 12 days: World Food Programme : Valley Vision

No food aid entered northern Gaza for 12 days, people have run out of ways to cope, food systems have collapsed, and the risk of famine is real, the World Food Programme warned in the Humanitarian Situation Update issued by OCHA Occupied Palestinian Territory.

“As of 12 October, no humanitarian food assistance has entered northern Gaza since 2 October as all crossings have been closed, and entire kitchens, bakeries and food distribution points in the North Gaza governorate have been forced to shut down due to airstrikes, military ground operations and evacuation orders,” the report reads.

The escalating violence and the severing of all critical food aid lifelines are having a disastrous impact on food security in the northern part of the Strip, where at least three-quarters of the population has been relying on food aid to survive. Essential goods are also largely unavailable on the market and the prices of what remains available are exorbitantly high.

Left with no other coping mechanisms, families have resorted to selling their remaining belongings and searching through the rubble for money or food, highlights FSS.

FSS partners have been endeavouring, while often risking their lives, to alleviate suffering by distributing all available aid supplies. Between 11 and 13 October, partners distributed more than 1,500 food parcels and 1,500 bags of wheat flour to IDPs trapped or sheltering in and near schools in Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahya, in North Gaza.

In Gaza City, 10 kitchens are distributing over 110,000 meals daily, including a new kitchen set up on 9 October in Ash Shati’ (Beach) refugee camp to support the influx of IDPs from North Gaza. On 10 October, WFP crossed from southern to northern Gaza to deliver fuel to the four remaining bakeries in the Gaza governorate, which has allowed for the free distribution of bread alongside cooked meals at most kitchens as well as in some shelters. There are now barely any food parcels left to distribute, and bakeries will be forced to shut down again within the span of a few days if no additional fuel is delivered, reports FSS.

The rapid deterioration in food security conditions in the north comes as overall food aid entering Gaza is at its lowest level in months, and commercial goods are barely trickling in. In central and southern Gaza, the situation is also at a breaking point due to insecurity, looting, access impediments, and supply shortages.

On 13 October, five bakeries in Deir al Balah and Khan Younis were forced to close due to the shortage of flour. Already in September, about 1.4 million people – nearly 70 per cent of the total population – did not receive their monthly food rations, which comprised pasta, rice, oil and canned meat, and represented a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of families.

If the flow of assistance does not immediately resume, almost two million people will lose this vital life-saving aid in October. While access to basic food commodities had somewhat stabilized in the Strip in June and July, all progress has now been reversed, according to WFP, and “people have run out of ways to cope, food systems have collapsed, and the risk of famine is real.”