// BBC WORLD NEWS — MONDO
Funding shortages force World Food Programme to cut aid to Gaza
Dalal al-Dahdouh said the WFP food handouts her family received were insufficient even before the cuts
One of the main suppliers of food aid to the Gaza Strip, the World Food Programme (WFP), says that it is being forced to "drastically reduce lifesaving assistance" to the Palestinian territory due to funding shortages.
Overall, the number of people helped by the UN agency will drop by about a third - from 1.6 million to 1.1 million.
The cuts will hit as winter approaches and at a time when many families in Gaza are still struggling to feed themselves.
One effect is that the number of hot meals that are currently being provided by community kitchens will be cut from 250,000 to 150,000 each day.
Families living in hard-to-reach areas, for example near the so-called Yellow Line, which demarcates Israel's area of military control, will receive a meal every other day instead of daily.
Nearly all of Gaza's 2.1 million population remains displaced and two-thirds rely on food aid to survive.
Mervat al-Satari, a mother-of-five, says the cuts are a "disaster"
"It's a disaster! What will we do with these reduced rations? How will we provide for the little ones?" said Mervat al-Satari, a displaced Palestinian mother-of-five at a camp in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis after being told of the WFP's news. "Sometimes we wait for these meals to eat."
"This will affect us a lot. The daily aid was somehow ticking the box but now it will be every two days," said Sawsan Bahloul, who is also from al-Mawasi and is a mother of three. She added that the portions given by the community kitchen - usually pasta or lentils with occasional potatoes and aubergines - were already too small to feed her family.