UN says Gaza food aid rising under ceasefire but far below need

The United Nations (UN) World Food Programme said on Friday it has brought about 560 tonnes of food per day on average into Gaza since the Israel-Hamas ceasefire took effect, but that still fell short of the scale of need in the region.

With famine conditions present in parts of Gaza, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher said on Wednesday that thousands of aid vehicles would now have to enter Gaza weekly to ease the crisis.

"We're still below what we need, but we're getting there... The ceasefire has opened a narrow window of opportunity, and WFP is moving very quickly and swiftly to scale up food assistance," WFP spokesperson Abeer Etefa told reporters in Geneva.

The WFP said it had not begun distributions in Gaza City, pointing to the continued closure of two border crossings, Zikim and Erez, with Israel in the north of the enclave where the humanitarian crisis is most acute.

"Access to Gaza City and northern Gaza is extremely challenging," Etefa said, saying convoys of wheat flour and ready-to-eat food parcels were struggling to move along damaged or blocked roads from the south of the war-devastated territory.

Though small amounts of nutrition products have reached the north, relief convoys were still unable to move significant quantities of food there, as well as other areas.

"We've had 57 trucks yesterday (into southern and central Gaza). We consider this a breakthrough, but we're not yet at the level of around 80-100 trucks a day," Etefa said.

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