Israel’s total blockade on humanitarian aid entry into Gaza forced dozens of community kitchens in the Strip to end their operations on Thursday after they ran out of stock, reported Reuters.
Late on Wednesday, the World Central Kitchen (WCK), a US-based charity, also shut its kitchens after it had run out of necessary supplies to provide free meals to the people of the war-battered enclave.
Community Kitchens Closure
The lack of supplies, resulting from Israel’s aid blockade, has forced most of Gaza’s 170 community kitchens to shut down, the director of the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (PNGO) in Gaza, Amjad Al-Shawa, told Reuters.
Al-Shawa warned that the closure of community kitchens in Gaza would cut daily free meals by 400,000 to 500,000 for the 2.3 million population. “Everyone in Gaza today is hungry. The world must act now to save the people here,” he said.
“The remaining kitchens will be closing soon. The hunger catastrophe is beyond words. People are losing their lone source of food,” Al-Shawa told Reuters.
Israel’s Aid Blockade
On March 2, 2025, Israel imposed a total blockade on humanitarian aid entry into Gaza, before resuming its military operations in the Strip on March 18, to increase pressure on Hamas to release the remaining hostages.
The blockade has exacerbated malnutrition and hunger, with rights groups warning that the blockade was a “starvation tactic” and a potential war crime, according to the Associated Press (AP).
Hunger Looming
In April, the UN World Food Program said that it had run out of food stocks in Gaza under the Israeli blockade, ending a critical lifeline for hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza. Moreover, the UN humanitarian agency OCHA warned that more than 2 million people face severe food shortages in Gaza.
“The free meals are usually rice or lentils, that is now also at risk of being suspended within the next week. I am afraid that we may begin to witness deaths among elderly, vulnerable children, pregnant women, and the ill,” Al-Shawa told Reuters.
