Crowds of displaced Palestinians, some carrying cooking pots and crying children, gathered at an aid kitchen in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis on Friday, but many left with nothing.
“The food ran out,” said Adel Mohammad, who was hoping to get his children a meal of rice – the only food being served. “At night they wake up hungry.”
After the kitchen shut down, children used their hands to scoop bits of rice left in large empty cooking pots.
The World Food Program has warned that the humanitarian response in Gaza is “nearing collapse as famine looms.”
The UN agency says Israeli restrictions on aid deliveries, along with the breakdown of law and order in Gaza, has made it difficult for aid convoys to reach displaced Palestinians.
Concerns are growing with the onset of another winter of war. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, many displaced repeatedly by Israeli attacks, are living in tent camps, reliant on international aid.
Experts have already warned of famine in northern Gaza, which Israeli forces have almost completely isolated since early October.
