ROME: Daily life has become “apocalyptic” in parts of southern Gaza since Israel moved into the city of Rafah, though the situation in the north is improving, the UN’s food agency said Friday.
“The exodus that we’ve seen in the past 20 days or so out of Rafah has been an awesome and horrific experience for many, many people,” Matthew Hollingworth, the World Food Programme (WFP) director for the Palestinian territories.
They have fled the fighting to areas where there was not enough water, health care or fuel, where food was limited, telecommunications had stopped and there was not enough space to dig pit latrines, Hollingworth told an online briefing.
The public health situation was “beyond crisis levels,” he said, adding: “The sounds and smells of everyday life are horrific and apocalyptic.”
People “sleep to the sounds of war... and they wake to the same sounds,” he said.
The WFP was able to provide “ever decreasing amounts of assistance,” with all of its bakeries in Rafah closed due to a lack of fuel and supplies, he said.
From May 7 — when Israeli tanks and troops entered Rafah’s east — to May 20, “not a single WFP truck crossed from the southern corridors from Egypt,” Hollingworth said.
The WFP also lost access to its main warehouse in the south of the Gaza Strip because it was in an evacuation zone, with 2,700 tons of food either looted or destroyed in fighting.
Hollingworth said the WFP was serving around 27,000 people with hot meals in Rafah — “but that’s not enough.”
In central areas of the Gaza Strip, where many people fled, the WFP is providing around 400,000 hot meals a day, and has kept six bakeries functioning.
Commercial food is also getting in, he said, but many people have no money, with some even resorting to trading their identity cards — which they need if they want to register for aid.
Hollingworth said aid trucks from Egypt had begun entering the Gaza Strip through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing.
“Since May 20, we have started to get a trickle of assistance in,” he said, though he warned the security situation was still slowing down the deliveries.
“That has to turn into a flood of assistance if we’re going to ensure we don’t start seeing the most acute forms of hunger becoming more common,” he said.
In the north of the Palestinian territory, by contrast, where UN agencies warned of imminent famine in March, Hollingworth said the situation was improving.
With the opening of crossings, around 12,000 tons of inter-agency assistance, mostly food, had been delivered since May 1.
“There has been a step change in terms of availability of food,” he said, though problems of health care, clean water supply and sewage remained.
The United States has built a temporary pier into Gaza, but it was damaged in poor weather, suspending deliveries.
During the two weeks it was open, about 1,000 tons of inter-agency aid moved through the pier, Hollingworth said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his government is doing everything to avoid famine in Gaza, and noted a study saying that calorie consumption in the territory was 3,200 a day — more than enough.
“I have not seen anybody, aid workers alike who live off protein bars, eat 3,000 calories or more in Gaza,” Hollingworth said.
The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,189 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Militants also took 252 hostages, 121 of whom remain in Gaza, including 37 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 36,284 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

DUBAI: Former Iranian parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani, a prominent conservative, was among candidates registering on Friday for an early election next month following the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash, state media reported.
Larijani, an adviser and ally of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told reporters that he would focus on fixing the economic problems facing Iranians and “resolving (US) sanctions,” while maintaining a strong defense.
Larijani was barred from standing in the 2021 presidential race by the clerical-led Guardian Council which vets candidates. But an Iranian insider told Reuters that Larijani decided to run after he was assured by top officials that he would not be disqualified by the hard-line council. No reason was given for the change.
Abdolnaser Hemmati, a former central bank governor, was among other hopefuls who registered on Friday. Hemmati, a low-key moderate, also ran in the 2021 presidential election.
Iran on Thursday started the registration of candidates for the June 28 election.
Once seen as a possible successor to Khamenei, Iran’s ultimate decision-maker, Raisi’s sudden death has triggered a race among hard-liners to influence the selection of the country’s next leader.
After a five-day registration period, the Guardian Council will vet candidates running for the presidency. Moderate politicians have accused the 12-member body of disqualifying rivals to hard-line candidates, who are expected to dominate the race.
Turnout may be hit by restricted choice on the ballot and rising discontent over an array of political, social and economic crises.
Within Iran’s complex mix of clerical rulers and elected officials, Khamenei has the final say on all state matters such as nuclear and foreign policies. But the elected president will be in charge of tackling worsening economic hardship.
Saeed Jalili, a former chief nuclear negotiator who two decades ago ran Khamenei’s office for four years, was the first heavyweight hard-liner to register for the election on Thursday.
Jalili had made an unsuccessful bid in 2013 for the presidency and withdrew from the 2021 race to support Raisi.
Parviz Fattah, a former Revolutionary Guards member who heads an investment fund linked to the leader, could also register as a candidate.
Interim President Mohammad Mokhber has also been mentioned in Iranian media as a possible candidate.
Several low-key moderate politicians are also likely to enter the race.