WFP halves West Bank food aid to 200,000 people as funding shortages deepen hunger, with 900,000 facing food insecurity amid rising prices and displacement, reports Asian Lite News Desk
The World Food Programme (WFP) is cutting food assistance in the West Bank by half because of a critical funding shortfall, even as the number of people facing food insecurity has more than doubled since 2023.
The United Nations agency said it will reduce the number of people receiving assistance from 400,000 to 200,000 from this month, forcing it to prioritise those considered most vulnerable.
An estimated 900,000 people are now food insecure across the West Bank, where increased settler violence, displacement and worsening economic conditions have disrupted livelihoods and pushed more families into hunger.
WFP said its latest quarterly food security analysis found that 76 percent of households in the West Bank had experienced a significant decline in income.
Food and fuel prices remain among the highest in the Middle East, leaving many families struggling to meet basic needs. Some have been forced to sell assets and cut back on both the quantity and quality of food they consume.
The assessment found that 12 percent of people had poor food consumption, while one in three families could not afford a nutritious diet because of the rapidly deteriorating economy.
Rural communities and people living in the southern West Bank governorates were identified among those worst affected.
“Families who were once thriving and earning a living from their land are now unable to afford enough food,” said Shaun Hughes, WFP Country Director for Palestine.
“At a time when WFP should be scaling up assistance to reach more people, we are being forced to make difficult decisions, prioritizing the most vulnerable while cutting assistance to others despite widespread needs.”
Hughes urged the international community to increase support for Palestinians, warning that the agency is being forced to scale back vital assistance at a time of growing need.
WFP and its partners have been supporting vulnerable families in the West Bank through cash and vouchers, food distributions, livelihood programmes and nutritional services.
However, the funding crisis has left the agency unable to maintain the current scale of its operations.
The situation is also putting pressure on WFP’s operations in Gaza, where the agency supports 1.5 million people, including around one million who receive food assistance each month.
In July, WFP reduced the cash value of assistance for 375,000 people in Gaza by 40 percent. The agency warned that further reductions will be unavoidable unless additional funding is secured.
WFP said it urgently needs an additional $386 million over the six months from September 2026 to provide assistance to an estimated two million food-insecure people across Gaza and the West Bank.
The agency said immediate international support is needed to prevent further cuts and ensure that food assistance reaches Palestinians facing the most severe levels of need.
