The United Nations announced on Tuesday that it had distributed food parcels to one million people in Gaza since the ceasefire began but warned it remained in a race against time to save lives.
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) urged that all crossings into the Gaza Strip be opened to allow large-scale delivery of aid to the famine-hit Palestinian territory. It said no explanation had been given for why the northern crossings with Israel remained closed.
“Three and a half weeks into the ceasefire in Gaza, we have distributed food parcels to around one million people across the Gaza Strip,” said Abeer Etefa, the WFP’s Middle East spokeswoman, speaking from Cairo to reporters in Geneva.
“That’s part of a broad operation to push back hunger in Gaza,” she added.
The WFP aims to reach 1.6 million people with parcels providing enough food for a family for 10 days. However, Etefa stressed that achieving this goal required greater access.
“To operate at the necessary scale, we need more crossings to open and better access to key roads inside Gaza,” she said.
The US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect on 10 October. Since then, WFP has expanded its operations, opening 44 of its planned 145 food distribution points.
Around 700,000 people now receive fresh bread daily through 17 WFP-supported bakeries — nine in southern and central Gaza, and eight in the north — with a target of increasing this number to 25 bakeries.
Etefa noted that although food availability had improved slightly thanks to humanitarian and commercial deliveries, consumption remained well below pre-war levels.
Currently, most households rely mainly on cereals and pulses, with meat, eggs, vegetables, and fruit still consumed “extremely rarely.”
Nour Hammad, the WFP’s spokeswoman in Gaza, said commercial food prices remained unaffordable for most families. “An apple now costs as much as a kilogram of apples did before the war,” she explained.
The WFP said it had only managed to bring in about half the supplies needed to meet Gaza’s food requirements.
“The needs are overwhelming,” Etefa said. “We are in a race to save lives.”
She added that WFP trucks currently entered Gaza only through the Kerem Shalom and Kissufim crossings, severely restricting aid flow to the north.
“We haven’t been given clear answers on why the northern crossing points are still closed,” she said.