The World Food Programme says its food stocks inside Gaza are exhausted and that the last remaining supplies have been delivered to hot-meals kitchens that may run out within days.
The warning makes the aid system inside the enclave look increasingly fragile. The WFP said months of blockade had left it unable to replenish stocks during a seven-week closure imposed by Israel, and that the kitchens serving cooked meals are now the only consistent source of food for many people. The agency said those kitchens have been reaching only about half the population and providing roughly a quarter of daily food needs, yet still serve as a critical lifeline.
The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said the situation in Gaza is probably the worst it has been since the war began. Aid agencies and foreign governments have echoed the alarm, with the foreign ministers of France, Germany and the United Kingdom urging an end to the blockade and warning of an acute risk of starvation, epidemic disease and death.
The scale of the shortage is severe enough that even the bakeries WFP supports have stopped working. The agency said the 25 bakeries it supplies have been unable to produce food since March 31 because flour and cooking oil are gone. It also said food prices have risen by 1,400% since the ceasefire collapsed, turning basic staples into luxuries for many families.
WFP said more than 116,000 metric tons of food, enough to feed about 1 million people for up to four months, is waiting at the border and being kept out by the blockade. That detail underlines how much of the crisis is about access rather than availability: food exists, but it is not reaching the population that needs it.
The broader war is the backdrop to the warning. Israel resumed bombing Gaza on March 18 and then launched a renewed ground offensive, according to the DW report. Since then, more than 2,000 Palestinians have reportedly been killed and most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced. The Gaza Health Ministry, run by Hamas, said at least 78 people were killed in the previous 24 hours and put the overall death toll at 51,439.
Israel rejects the claim that Gaza faces a food crisis and says 25,000 aid vehicles entered during the 42-day ceasefire that ended in March. It also says the blockade will continue until Hamas releases hostages and the bodies of those who died in captivity. Israel says Hamas still holds 58 hostages, 24 of whom are thought to be alive.
The competing narratives are stark, but the immediate reality described by the WFP is less abstract: empty warehouses, shut bakeries and kitchens that may soon have nothing left to serve. In a territory already shattered by war, that makes hunger not a side effect but one of the defining emergencies of the conflict.
The crisis now depends on whether aid corridors can be reopened fast enough to prevent the warning from turning into the kind of collapse the WFP fears. If the blockade continues, the most immediate victims will be families already relying on hot meals and bread for survival. If it eases, agencies will still face the task of rebuilding a food system that has been repeatedly interrupted by war. Either way, the WFP's message is blunt: in Gaza, hunger is no longer a distant risk but a present emergency.
