GENEVA: The number of humanitarian aid convoys entering Gaza daily must at least double to meet some of the population’s most basic needs, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Wednesday.
The United Nations has warned that widespread famine in the Gaza Strip is “almost inevitable” without action. Aid organizations have blamed military operations, insecurity and extensive restrictions to the delivery of essential supplies for the shortage of food in the enclave, which has been devastated by an Israeli offensive against Hamas.
The five-month war has already killed over 30,000 people in the Strip, according to health officials in Gaza.
“I would say that we need to double the level we have now. We are now at around 150 trucks. We need a minimum of 300 trucks a day coming in,” Carl Skau, Deputy Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer at the World Food Programme, told Reuters.
“But of course, that also in the longer run needs to be supplemented with commercial (supplies).”
Before the conflict began in October, Gaza relied on 500 trucks entering daily. Aid can currently be delivered into southern Gaza via the Rafah crossing from Egypt and Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel.
A breakdown of law and order inside Gaza has been a major impediment to aid delivery, as five months of war have destroyed many of the institutions that underpinned social order in the Palestinian enclave.
“The breakdown of civil order is an increasing challenge for us,” Skau said. “There are armed gangs that are roaming, filling that vacuum of security.”
Some convoys have been seized by people seeking food, and any convoys moving into northern Gaza require Israeli coordination for safe passage through checkpoints and areas with fighting.
On Tuesday, WFP’s first mission to northern Gaza since Feb. 20 — a 14-truck food convoy — was turned back by the Israeli Defense Force after a three-hour wait at the Wadi Gaza checkpoint, it said.
Skau said Israeli authorities did not provide a reason for the convoy being turned away.
The WFP said that after the trucks were turned away, they were rerouted and later stopped by a large crowd of desperate people who looted the food, taking around 200 tons.
Skau said he could not predict when the WFP would make a new attempt to deliver supplies to northern Gaza but said the organization was “determined to get there as soon as we can.”
“We have built up the commodities to be able to serve the entire population for three months, and this can be scaled up tomorrow, should the situation allow,” Skau said.
“We will go as soon as we feel that the conditions are acceptable.”
Aid trucks entering Gaza must double to meet basic needs, WFP says
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Aid trucks entering Gaza must double to meet basic needs, WFP says
- The five-month war has already killed over 30,000 people in the Strip, according to health officials in Gaza
Ankara city hall says water cuts due to ‘record drought’
- Dam reservoir levels have dropped to 1.12 percent and taps are being shut off for several hours a day in certain districts on a rotating schedule in Ankara
ANKARA: Water cuts for the past several weeks in Turkiye’s capital were due to the worst drought in 50 years and an exploding population, a municipal official told AFP, rejecting accusations of mismanagement.
Dam reservoir levels have dropped to 1.12 percent and taps are being shut off for several hours a day in certain districts on a rotating schedule in Ankara, forcing many residents to line up at public fountains to fill pitchers.
“2025 was a record year in terms of drought. The amount of water feeding the dams fell to historically low levels, to 182 million cubic meters in 2025, compared with 400 to 600 million cubic meters in previous years. This is the driest period in the last 50 years,” said Memduh Akcay, director general of the Ankara municipal water authority.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called the Ankara municipal authorities, led by the main opposition party, “incompetent.”
Rejecting this criticism, the city hall says Ankara is suffering from the effects of climate change and a growing population, which has doubled since the 1990s to nearly six million inhabitants.
“In addition to reduced precipitation, the irregularity of rainfall patterns, the decline in snowfall, and the rapid conversion of precipitation into runoff (due to urbanization) prevent the dams from refilling effectively,” Akcay said.
A new pumping system drawing water from below the required level in dams will ensure no water cuts this weekend, Ankara’s city hall said, but added that the problem would persist in the absence of sufficient rainfall.
Much of Turkiye experienced a historic drought in 2025. The municipality of Izmir, the country’s third-largest city on the Aegean coast, has imposed daily water cuts since last summer.
