WFP to suspend food aid to thousands of Palestinians

The World Food Programme (WFP) will suspend food aid to more than 200,000 Palestinians from next month due to a “severe” shortage of funds, the group’s senior official for the Palestinian territories said on Sunday.

“In light of the severe funding shortages, WFP is forced to make painful choices to stretch the limited resources,” Samer Abdeljaber, the WFP’s country director, told Reuters by phone from Jerusalem.

“WFP would have to start suspending assistance to over 200,000 people, which is 60 per cent of its current case load, from June.”

The most impacted families are in Gaza, where food insecurity and poverty are the highest, and in the West Bank.

Palestinian children and elderly in crutches and protest outside a UN office in Gaza. — Palestinians stage a protest outside the UN offices in Gaza.(Reuters: Mohammed Salem)

The United Nations agency offers impoverished Palestinians both monthly vouchers with a value of $10.30 ($15.26) per person and food baskets. Both programs will be affected.

Gaza, which has been run by the Islamist Hamas group since 2007, is home to 2.3 million people, of which 45 per cent are unemployed and 80 per cent depend on international aid, according to Palestinian and UN records.

“WFP understands the implications of this unavoidable and hard decision on hundreds of thousands of people who also depend on food assistance for their most basic needs,” Mr Abdeljaber said.

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Aid vouchers difference between life and death

Citing security concerns with the enclave’s Hamas rulers, Israel has led a blockade together with Egypt that has put restrictions on the movement of people and goods for years.

Mr Abdeljaber said the UN agency would continue its aid to 140,000 people in Gaza and the West Bank, adding that the suspension decision was taken to save those at the highest risk of not being able to afford their food.

He said unless there was more funding, WFP would be forced to suspend food and cash assistance entirely by August.

Chanting “no to hunger”, dozens of Palestinians staged a protest outside the WFP offices in Gaza City to protest against the decision.

“The voucher is life. The message they sent us equals death since there is no other source of income,” said Faraj Al-Masri, a father of two, whose family gets vouchers worth $US41.20 ($61) per month.

In Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, Jamalat El-Dabour, whose family receives $164.80 worth of vouchers per month, said they would “starve to death” as her husband was sick and unemployed.