United Nations Reports Average of 560 Tonnes of Food Aid Entering Gaza Daily
The United Nations announced on Friday, October 17, 2025, that approximately 560 tonnes of food aid enter Gaza daily on average since the start of the ceasefire. However, convoys are struggling to reach the famine-stricken city of Gaza due to damage to roads during the war and the continued closure of main aid routes in the North.
In the face of spreading famine in parts of Gaza, Tom Fletcher, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, stated that thousands of aid-laden trucks should enter the Gaza Strip every week to mitigate a crisis characterized by malnutrition, displacement, and infrastructure collapse.
"The quantity remains below needs, but we are getting closer to this goal... The ceasefire has provided a narrow window, and the World Food Programme (WFP) is mobilizing very quickly to increase food aid," Abeer Etefa, WFP spokesperson, told journalists in Geneva.
The Programme indicated that it has not yet begun distribution operations in the city of Gaza, emphasizing that the Zikim and Erez (Beit Hanoun) border crossings between the occupied territories and the north of the strip, where the humanitarian crisis is most acute, remain closed.
Etefa added: "Access to the city of Gaza and the north of the Gaza Strip is a major challenge," specifying that convoys of flour and ready-to-eat food packages are struggling to move through damaged or blocked roads from the south of the strip, devastated by the war. "It is very important to open crossing points in the North, where famine is endemic... To reverse the course of this famine... It is necessary to ensure the opening of these crossing points," she added.
