Gaza’s bakeries could shut down within a week under blockade of food and supplies — UN

Gaza’s bakeries will run out of flour for bread within a week, the UN says. Agencies have cut food distributions to families in half. Markets are empty of most vegetables. Many aid workers cannot move around because of Israeli strikes targeting terror sites.

For four weeks, Israel has shut off all sources of food, fuel, medicine and other supplies for the Gaza Strip’s population of more than 2 million Palestinians, citing Hamas’s refusal to extend the first phase of the ceasefire deal and release more hostages. Israeli officials insist they allowed enough aid in during the two-month ceasefire to last Gaza for several months, while accusing Hamas of hoarding supplies for itself.

It’s the longest blockade yet of Israel’s 17-month-old campaign against Hamas, with no sign of it ending. Many are reportedly going hungry during the normally festive Eid al-Fitr, a major Muslim holiday.

Aid workers are stretching out the supplies they have but warn of a catastrophic surge in severe hunger and malnutrition. Eventually, food will run out completely if the flow of aid is not restored, because the war has destroyed almost all local food production in Gaza.

The World Food Program said Thursday that its flour for bakeries is only enough to keep producing bread for 800,000 people a day until Tuesday and that its overall food supplies will last a maximum of two weeks. As a “last resort” once all other food is exhausted, it has emergency stocks of fortified nutritional biscuits for 415,000 people.

Fuel and medicine will last weeks longer before hitting zero. Hospitals are rationing antibiotics and painkillers. Aid groups are shifting limited fuel supplies between multiple needs, all indispensable — trucks to move aid, bakeries to make bread, wells and desalination plants to produce water, hospitals to keep machines running.