Northern Gaza's Food Situation Has Gone From Bad to Dire

A "lifeline" has been severed in Gaza, per World Food Programme. On Friday, it told CNN that zero food trucks have entered northern Gaza since Israel began a major push into the region in early October. With aid dried up, the WFP says it has been "unable to conduct any food parcel distributions" in October. By the organization's count, roughly 700 aid trucks entered northern Gaza in August; the number dropped to 400 in September. The BBC echoes the WFP, reporting no humanitarian food trucks entered northern Gaza via the Erez and Erez West crossings between Oct. 2 and 15.

That's meant no flour and fuel for two of central Gaza's key bakeries, which "produce bread as part of humanitarian aid," per CNN, and had been supported by the WFP; they had to cease operations this week. The network notes bread has become "the number one staple food for Palestinians."

"Hunger remains rampant and the threat of famine persists," WFP stated. "If the flow of assistance does not resume, one million vulnerable people will be deprived on this lifeline." In a Thursday press release, the WFP cited a new food security assessment compiled by 16 UN agencies and NGOs. It predicts 91% of the population, or 1.95 million people, will face acute food insecurity (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Phase 3 or worse) in the coming months. Of those, 876,000 will face Emergency levels of hunger (IPC Phase 4), and 345,000 people would face Catastrophic levels of hunger (IPC Phase 5).