560 tons of food entering Gaza daily since ceasefire, still far 'below what's needed': World Food Program
Agency currently has 5 distribution points and seeks to increase that to 145 across Gaza, says spokesperson
GENEVA
The UN World Food Program (WFP) is delivering around 560 tons of food daily to Gaza since a ceasefire took effect on Oct. 11, but warned deliveries remain far below what is needed to meet the population's urgent needs.
"The ceasefire has opened a narrow window of an opportunity, and WFP is moving very quickly and swiftly to scale up food assistance and reach families who have faced months of block aid, displacement and hunger," WFP spokesperson Abeer Etefa told reporters in Geneva on Friday.
On Oct. 11-15, around 230 trucks carried about 2,800 tons of food supplies into Gaza, according to Etefa. Two additional convoys entered through Kerem Shalom on Thursday with wheat flour and nutrition supplies, though those figures were still being tallied.
"We're still below what we need, but we’re getting there," she said, noting the agency's daily average deliveries have reached about 560 tons since the ceasefire came into effect.
To bring aid closer to families, WFP has five food distribution points across Gaza, aiming to expand that network to 145 locations. The spokesperson said reaching the scale of 145 distribution points depends on "trucks continuing to roll in consistently."
Etefa also said nine bakeries are currently operational in Gaza, producing over 100,000 bundles of bread daily, each weighing two kilograms and feeding a family of five for a day, around half a million people out of Gaza’s total population of over 2 million. WFP hopes to increase the number of bakeries to 30 across Gaza.
The agency has also pre-positioned nearly 60,000 tons of food supplies across Egypt, Jordan, and inside Israel to sustain deliveries while the ceasefire holds.
According to figures from UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) spokesperson Jens Laerke, citing Israeli data provided to mediators, 950 trucks entered Gaza on Thursday, including eight carrying fuel and three carrying gas – 807 through Kerem Shalom and 143 via Kissufim.
The previous day, 716 trucks crossed, 16 of them with fuel and gas, with 623 entering through Kerem Shalom and 93 through Kissufim. These totals cover aid entering through the commercial sector, bilateral donations, and UN-coordinated systems, with roughly one-third managed through UN mechanisms, he said.
