World leaders, aid groups react to humanitarian crisis, competing narratives in Gaza

3. World Food Programme

In a statement posted to X Sunday, the United Nations’ World Food Programme expressed gratitude that “designated humanitarian corridors will be created, to facilitate the safe movement of UN convoys delivering emergency food supplies and other aid to people in Gaza.” The organization insisted that “WFP has enough food in — or on its way to — the region to feed the entire population of 2.1 million people for almost three months.” 

The World Food Programme praised the “new commitments to improve operating conditions” as part of Israel’s efforts to “strengthen facilitation of humanitarian assistance.”

Additional examples of these efforts include “allowing more trucks to enter Gaza with quicker clearances and approvals, use of alternative roads and routes inside Gaza, assurances of no armed forces or shootings near convoys, and the ability for humanitarian organizations to import and use the communications equipment needed to coordinate aid deliveries.”

The World Food Programme noted that it had delivered “350 truckloads of food aid into Gaza last week under extremely challenging circumstances that put civilians and aid workers at tremendous risk.”

Highlighting how it had “delivered 22,000 tons of food aid into Gaza” since border crossings were reopened on May 21, the World Food Programme said “more than 62,000 tons of food assistance is needed monthly to cover the entire 2.1 million population.”

Painting a bleak picture of the situation on the ground, the World Food Programme shared statistics that found “a third of the population is not eating for days” and “some 470,000 people are enduring famine-like conditions.”

It added that “90,000 women and children need urgent nutrition treatment,” and warned that “people are dying due to a lack of humanitarian assistance.” 

Netanyahu had identified the establishment of “safe corridors” as part of an effort to combat the “egregious falsehood” that Israel is preventing people in Gaza from accessing food. Responding to the U.N.’s insistence that they have been unable to provide food to people in Gaza because combat is going on, Netanyahu maintained that the supranational organization had “no excuses left” not to distribute the aid.