“Today, WFP delivered its last remaining food stocks to hot meals kitchens.” With that line, on April 25, 2025, the UN World Food Programme told the world it had nothing left in Gaza. The kitchens, it said, would be out of food within days.
For weeks those kitchens had been the only steady source of food for people in the Strip. Even fully stocked, they reached half the population and covered 25 percent of daily food needs. Now they were about to stop.
Seven weeks without supplies
No humanitarian or commercial goods had entered Gaza for more than seven weeks. Israel cut off aid on March 2 and resumed its offensive two weeks later, after a two-month ceasefire collapsed. It said the pressure was meant to push Hamas into releasing its remaining hostages. The WFP called it the longest closure Gaza has faced.
The effects were already visible. On March 31, all 25 WFP-supported bakeries shut because wheat flour and cooking fuel had run out. The same week, family food parcels holding two weeks of rations were used up. Food prices were up as much as 1,400 percent against the ceasefire period.
Malnutrition was climbing too. A UN partner screened 1,300 children in northern Gaza the week before and found more than 80 cases of acute malnutrition, double the rate of previous weeks.
The agency said 116,000 metric tons of food, enough for one million people for up to four months, sat at aid corridors, waiting for the crossings to open.
Voices from the ground
Antoine Renard, WFP’s country director, told the BBC the agency was doing everything it could to keep the kitchens going. More than 80% of Gaza’s people had been displaced during the war, he said, and since the offensive resumed on March 18 over 400,000 had been uprooted again. “Every time you move, every time you lose assets,” he said.
Gavin Kelleher of the Norwegian Refugee Council, speaking from central Gaza, said families were eating less, swapping “a bag of diapers for lentils or cooking oil” or selling their last belongings for cash. Begging, he said, had reached a scale never seen there, though people had nothing left to give. “The desperation is really, really severe.”
WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called it “an awful and grim moment” and said, “This aid blockade must end.”
Israel’s position
Israel’s foreign ministry rejected a joint statement from the UK, France and Germany that called the blockade “intolerable”. It said more than 25,000 lorries carrying almost 450,000 tonnes of aid entered during the ceasefire and that “there is no shortage of aid in Gaza.” It also argued it was under no obligation to let supplies in because Hamas had “hijacked” them. Hamas has denied stealing aid, and the UN says it kept “a very good chain of custody” on what it delivered.
The UN holds that Israel must ensure supplies reach the 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza. Israel says it complies with international law.
The war began with the October 7, 2023 attack in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage. At least 51,439 people have died in Gaza since, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Sources
- WFP runs out of food stocks in Gaza as border crossings remain closed | World Food Programme
- Gaza: WFP runs out of food aid after seven-week Israeli blockade
Sources
- WFP runs out of food stocks in Gaza as border crossings remain…
- Gaza: WFP runs out of food aid after seven-week Israeli blockade
