Food security in Gaza improves but remains fragile: UN

ROME – Food security and child nutrition have improved across the Gaza Strip, but remain fragile because only one aid crossing point is open, the UN’s World Food Programme said on July 23.

The Rome-based organisation noted “an improvement in food security and child nutrition across the Gaza Strip”, but “cautioned that the progress, driven largely by expanded access to humanitarian food, nutrition, agricultural and health assistance, remains fragile”.

“While access into Gaza has improved, only one crossing – Kerem Shalom/Abu Salem – in the south of Gaza remains open, limiting the flow of essential goods,” the World Food Programme (WFP) said in a statement.

There has been a “significant” increase in food and nutritional aid since the ceasefire agreement was reached in October 2025, it said.

Food parcels were delivered to around 1.5 million people in May, while some 700,000 people received cash assistance and 60 per cent of children under five were given nutritional support.

The UN’s aid chief Tom Fletcher called in June for the opening of all crossing points into Gaza and the immediate lifting of Israeli restrictions on the entry of goods such as medical equipment and fuel.

The WFP said that there were early signs in the Strip that local food production “can be restored where farmers and herders are able to access cropland, agricultural inputs, productive assets, veterinary support and other essential services such as energy for irrigation”.

The agency pointed to evidence in the livestock sector, “where sheep inventories have increased by 33 per cent in areas where support has been sustained”.

But it warned “this can only go so far without the removal of restrictions on what enters the Strip”.

The two-year war between Israeli forces and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas severely damaged Gaza’s agricultural sector.

More than 70 per cent of Gaza’s cropland is not accessible and only 3 per cent is currently usable, the WFP said. AFP