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WFP: Little Aid Reaching Gaza Prompting Risk of 'Pockets of Famine'

Palestinians who flee from Khan Younis from Israeli ground and air offensive on the Gaza Strip arrive in Rafah, southern Gaza, Monday, Jan. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Palestinians who flee from Khan Younis from Israeli ground and air offensive on the Gaza Strip arrive in Rafah, southern Gaza, Monday, Jan. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
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WFP: Little Aid Reaching Gaza Prompting Risk of 'Pockets of Famine'

Palestinians who flee from Khan Younis from Israeli ground and air offensive on the Gaza Strip arrive in Rafah, southern Gaza, Monday, Jan. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Palestinians who flee from Khan Younis from Israeli ground and air offensive on the Gaza Strip arrive in Rafah, southern Gaza, Monday, Jan. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)

The World Food Program said on Tuesday that very little food assistance has made it beyond southern Gaza since the start of the conflict and that the risk of pockets of famine in the Palestinian enclave remained.
Israel's offensive launched in the wake of a deadly rampage by Hamas militants in southern Israel on Oct. 7 has displaced most of Gaza's 2.3 million population and caused acute shortages of food, water and medical supplies.
At least 25,295 people in Gaza have been killed, according to Palestinian authorities, with thousands more feared buried under the rubble of a coastal strip largely laid to waste.
"It's difficult to get into the places where we need to get to in Gaza, especially in northern Gaza," said Abeer Etefa, WFP spokesperson for the Middle East.
"Very little assistance has made it beyond the southern part of the Gaza Strip... I think the risk of having pockets of famine in Gaza is very much still there."
According to Reuters, Etefa noted that there was a "systematic limitation on getting into the north of Gaza, not just for the WFP".
"This is why we're seeing people becoming more desperate and being impatient to wait for food distributions, because it's very sporadic," she said.
"They don't get it frequently, and they have no trust or confidence that these convoys will come again."
The UN humanitarian office this month said Israeli authorities were systematically denying it access to northern Gaza to deliver aid and this had significantly hindered the humanitarian operation there.
Israel has previously denied blocking the entry of aid.
Since the start of hostilities, aid deliveries to northern Gaza have been limited, and the area was cut off altogether from external aid for weeks earlier in the conflict.

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Kurdish Fighters Leave Northern City in Syria as Part of Deal with Central Government

A first contingent of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters leave Aleppo, headed for SDF-controlled northeastern Syria, in Aleppo, Syria, 04 April 2025. (EPA)
A first contingent of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters leave Aleppo, headed for SDF-controlled northeastern Syria, in Aleppo, Syria, 04 April 2025. (EPA)
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Kurdish Fighters Leave Northern City in Syria as Part of Deal with Central Government

A first contingent of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters leave Aleppo, headed for SDF-controlled northeastern Syria, in Aleppo, Syria, 04 April 2025. (EPA)
A first contingent of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters leave Aleppo, headed for SDF-controlled northeastern Syria, in Aleppo, Syria, 04 April 2025. (EPA)

Scores of US-backed Kurdish fighters left two neighborhoods in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo Friday as part of a deal with the central government in Damascus, which is expanding its authority in the country.

The fighters left the predominantly Kurdish northern neighborhoods of Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh, which had been under the control of Kurdish fighters in Aleppo over the past decade.

The deal is a boost to an agreement reached last month between Syria’s interim government and the Kurdish-led authority that controls the country’s northeast. The deal could eventually lead to the merger of the main US-backed force in Syria into the Syrian army.

The withdrawal of fighters from the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) came a day after dozens of prisoners from both sides were freed in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.

Syria’s state news agency, SANA, reported that government forces were deployed along the road that SDF fighters will use to move between Aleppo and areas east of the Euphrates River, where the Kurdish-led force controls nearly a quarter of Syria.

Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh had been under SDF control since 2015 and remained so even when forces of ousted President Bashar al-Assad captured Aleppo in late 2016. The two neighborhoods remained under SDF control when forces loyal to current interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa captured the city in November, and days later captured the capital, Damascus, removing Assad from power.

After being marginalized for decades under the rule of the Assad family rule, the deal signed last month promises Syria’s Kurds “constitutional rights,” including using and teaching their language, which were banned for decades.

Hundreds of thousands of Kurds, who were displaced during Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war, will return to their homes. Thousands of Kurds living in Syria who have been deprived of nationality for decades under Assad will be given the right of citizenship, according to the agreement.

Kurds made up 10% of the country’s prewar population of 23 million. Kurdish leaders say they don’t want full autonomy with their own government and parliament. They want decentralization and room to run their day-to day-affairs.