UN agency closes its remaining Gaza bakeries as food supplies dwindle

The UN food agency is closing all of its bakeries in the Gaza Strip, officials said on Tuesday, as supplies dwindle after Israel sealed off the territory from all imports nearly a month ago.

Israel, which later resumed its offensive to pressure the Hamas group into accepting changes to their ceasefire agreement, said enough food had entered Gaza during the six-week truce to sustain the territory's roughly 2 million Palestinians.

Markets largely emptied weeks ago. UN agencies say the supplies they built up during the truce are running out. Gaza is heavily reliant on international aid because the war has destroyed almost all of its food production capability.

Mohammed Al Kurd, a father of 12, said his children go to bed without dinner.

"We tell them to be patient and that we will bring flour in the morning,” he said. "We lie to them and to ourselves.”

For the second consecutive day, Israel’s military warned residents of Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah to immediately evacuate, a sign that it could soon launch a major ground operation. 

At least 140,000 people were under orders to leave, according to the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

A World Food Programme memo circulated to aid groups said it could no longer operate its remaining bakeries, which produce the bread on which many rely. 

The UN agency said it was prioritizing its remaining stocks to provide emergency food aid and expand hot meal distribution. WFP spokespeople didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said WFP was closing its remaining 19 bakeries after shuttering six last month. She said hundreds of thousands of people relied on them.

The Israeli military body in charge of Palestinian affairs, known as COGAT, said more than 25,000 trucks entered Gaza during the ceasefire, carrying nearly 450,000 tons of aid. It said the amount represented around a third of what has entered during the war.

"There is enough food for a long period of time, if Hamas lets the civilians have it,” it said.

UN agencies and aid groups say they struggled to bring in and distribute aid before the ceasefire took hold in January. Their estimates for how much aid reached people in Gaza were consistently lower than COGAT’s, which were based on how much entered through border crossings.

Gaza's Health Ministry reported that at least 42 bodies and more than 180 wounded arrived at hospitals over the past 24 hours. At least 1,042 Palestinians have been killed in the two weeks since Israel broke the ceasefire and resumed heavy bombardments.

Israel sealed off Gaza from all aid at the start of the war but later relented under pressure from Washington. US President Donald Trump's administration, which took credit for helping to broker the ceasefire, has expressed full support for Israel's actions, including its decision to end the truce.

Israel has demanded that Hamas release several hostages before further talks on ending the war. Those negotiations were supposed to begin in early February. It has also insisted that Hamas disarm and leave Gaza, conditions that weren't part of the ceasefire agreement.

Hamas has called for implementing the agreement, in which the remaining hostages would be released in exchange for the release of more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal.

Palestinians mourned Mohamed Salah Bardawil, a journalist with Hamas-affiliated Aqsa Radio who was killed along with his wife and three children by an Israeli strike early on Tuesday at their home in southern Gaza.

Associated Press footage showed the building in Khan Younis collapsed, with dried blood splattered on the rubble. A child’s school notebook, dust-covered dolls and clothing lay half-buried in the ruins. The Israeli military declined to comment.

The journalist is the nephew of Salah Bardawil, a well-known member of Hamas’ political bureau who was killed in an Israeli strike that also killed his wife last month.

Israeli strikes have killed more than 170 journalists and media workers since the war began, the Committee to Protect Journalists has estimated.

Associated Press