The World Food Programme said on October 19, 2026, that it is cutting 500,000 people from its monthly assistance in Gaza because of a funding shortfall, reducing the number it helps from 1.6 million to 1.1 million, according to France 24, citing AFP and Reuters. WFP country director Shaun Hughes said: “As of this month, we’re now cutting half a million people from the number of people that we’re assisting.” The 1.1 million who remain represent roughly half of Gaza’s population, and two-thirds of Gazans are acutely food insecure. The cut follows a warning in July that deeper reductions were likely by October unless more funding arrived, Reuters reported at the time.
The case that the agency had little choice is that it had warned for months. In July, WFP said it supported 70 percent of Gaza’s population and that it would have to make deeper cuts without extra money, citing donor fatigue, according to Reuters. That month it cut cash assistance for 75,000 people by 25 percent and halved food rations for 220,000 households, and it said much deeper reductions were expected by October. In the occupied West Bank, WFP had already halved its assistance from 400,000 people to 200,000 because of funding shortages, as reported by PBS and Al Jazeera. An agency funded by voluntary donations cannot feed people without money.
The case that the cut will cause serious harm is in the food-insecurity figures. France 24 reported that two-thirds of Gaza’s population is acutely food insecure, so a reduction from 1.6 million to 1.1 million people leaves 500,000 people who were receiving help without it, even though the need has not fallen. The reduction follows the July cuts in rations and cash and the halving of aid in the West Bank, so the cumulative loss of support is larger than any single announcement. The cut of 500,000 from 1.6 million is about 31 percent of the people who had been receiving help. The 1.1 million people who remain are, as France 24 put it, roughly half of Gaza’s population. The ceasefire that began in October 2025 has not ended strikes, with Gaza.s health ministry reporting, as of mid-September, more than 1,300 Palestinians killed since it took effect, so the security situation is also fragile.
The decision matters for the humanitarian response across the Palestinian territories because WFP is one of the main sources of food for a population that depends on aid, and because the funding gap shows the limits of international support. For donors, the numbers set out a clear choice between increasing contributions and accepting that fewer people will be fed. In the West Bank the earlier halving removed 200,000 people from the programme. For Gaza’s families, the cut means more of them will need to find food through other means at a time when most are already unable to meet their needs.
The WFP’s cut removes help from half a million people, and it follows months of warnings. Whether donors respond will determine whether this reduction is the last or the first of many.
