The Japan Times - WFP says has depleted all Gaza food stocks as Israel blocks aid

After 18 months of war, the situation in Gaza "is probably the worst" now, the United Nations' humanitarian agency OCHA said on Tuesday.

WFP, one of the main providers of food assistance in Gaza, said it had "delivered its last remaining food stocks to hot meals kitchens in the Gaza Strip" on Friday.

It said "these kitchens are expected to fully run out of food in the coming days".

After blocking aid during an impasse over the future of a ceasefire with Hamas, Israel resumed its bombardment of Gaza on March 18, followed by a ground offensive.

The Hamas-run territory's health ministry on Friday said at least 78 Palestinians had been killed over the previous 24 hours during the Israeli offensive, a relatively high one-day toll.

But Gazans say they are also threatened with death from a lack of food.

Aid agencies in addition to WFP, as well as Western governments, have also voiced alarm.

"We are literally dying of hunger," Tasnim Abu Matar, a resident of Gaza City, said earlier this week.

WFP said that, "For weeks, hot meal kitchens have been the only consistent source of food assistance for people in Gaza. Despite reaching just half the population with only 25 percent of daily food needs, they have provided a critical lifeline."

- 'Pressure' on Hamas -

WFP added that all 25 bakeries it supports in Gaza were forced to close on March 31 as wheat flour and cooking oil ran out.

"This is the longest closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced, exacerbating already fragile markets and food systems," it said.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz last week said his country would continue preventing aid from entering Gaza because the blockade is "one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using (aid) as a tool with the population".

On Wednesday, Germany, France and Britain called for an end to the blockade and warned of "an acute risk of starvation, epidemic disease and death".

"The Israeli decision to block aid from entering Gaza is intolerable," their three foreign ministers said.

The heads of 12 major NGOs including Oxfam and Save the Children, last week said "famine is not just a risk, but likely rapidly unfolding in almost all parts" of the coastal territory.

At least 2,062 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel said in mid-March said it was resuming its military campaign against Hamas Palestinian militants.

That brings the overall death toll of the war to 51,439, according to the territory's health ministry.

Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel that began the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.

- 'I found him on fire' -

Among fatalities on Friday were five members of the al-Taima family killed when an air strike hit their makeshift tent in Al-Mawasi, near Khan Yunis, Mohammed al-Mughayyir, an official with the civil defence agency, told AFP

Gazan resident Ramy, who gave only his first name, said he lost his three-year-old son in a strike on their tent.

"When I couldn't find him, I went back to the tent and I found him on fire," Ramy told AFP.

Rescue teams found more bodies from the rubble of a home in northern Jabalia, bringing the death toll from a strike there on Thursday to 23.

"Civil defence teams recovered 11 bodies last night and this morning following the Israeli bombing that targeted a residential house... in Jabalia," Mughayyir told AFP.

"This is in addition to the 12 victims recovered at the time of the attack yesterday."

The military said on Thursday that it had struck a Hamas "command and control centre" in the area of Jabalia, without specifying the target.

Israel's military has threatened an even larger offensive if militants do not soon free hostages they continue to hold.

Israel says militants still hold 58 people captured during their October 2023 attack, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

M.Matsumoto--JT