The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Monday of the «extremely fragile» situation in the Gaza Strip, despite significantly expanding its operations in the area, where it is assisting more than one million people each month. «Continuous access through all border crossings, the flow of humanitarian and commercial aid, and the continuation of the ceasefire are essential to prevent Gaza from falling back into a catastrophic famine,» the WFP explains in a statement. The UN agency highlighted that over the past 100 days since the ceasefire, it has expanded its operations and has helped more than one million people every month through food packages, bread, hot meals, and school supplies. The WFP and its partners now operate in hundreds of distribution sites and 20 warehouses within Gaza, including the areas of Bait Lahia and the Jabalia camp, they added. According to the note, 400,000 meals are being served daily in 45 canteens, and work is being done to prevent malnutrition among 200,000 pregnant or breastfeeding women and children under 5 years old. In all cases, they explain, families in Gaza depend on food aid «and this is not sustainable in the area». The WFP states that it is necessary to begin rebuilding the possibility of «self-sufficiency». Access to nutritious foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, and dairy products, is limited, and many families are still not prepared to endure the harsh winter months, while hundreds of thousands are displaced from their homes and living in rural buildings or in severely damaged structures.
