‘Stuff of nightmares’: UK cuts aid to UN’s Gaza food operations by 78%

Britain has cut funding for the UN’s food operations in Gaza by 78 per cent, undermining a promise by ministers to protect aid to the Palestinian territory. The UK’s annual contribution to the World Food Programme Palestine fell from $18m (£13.6m) in 2024 to $9.3m (£7m) last year and just $4m (£3m) this year, The i Paper has learned. The organisation has said the funding shortfall will mean it has to cut the number of people it can feed in Gaza from 1.1 million to 600,000. Shorts In March, the then foreign secretary Yvette Cooper told the Commons: “We are fully protecting our allocation to Palestine.” The Foreign Office insisted that this was still the case, and that its overall aid budget for Palestine remained at £127m. An £88m package of support for healthcare, clean water, sanitation and other essential services for people in Gaza and the West Bank was announced last Thursday. But MPs on the international development committee have called the cuts to the UN agency “appalling” and said they were the “stuff of nightmares”. The revelation risks reigniting left-wing anger at Labour’s approach to Gaza as it attempts to hold off the challenge of Green leader Zack Polanski in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election. Britain’s overall aid budget has been squeezed in recent years. The previous Tory government cut spending on development from 0.7 per cent of GDP to 0.5 per cent in 2021, before Sir Keir Starmer reduced it further to 0.3 per cent, which takes effect next year. Programmes are already being scaled back. Gaza situation is ‘extremely fragile’ A World Food Programme spokesperson said: “The situation is Gaza remains critical and extremely fragile. At a time when WFP should be scaling up assistance to reach more people, we are being forced to make difficult decisions, prioritising the most vulnerable while cutting assistance to others despite widespread needs. “Humanitarian assistance is still a lifeline and without it, people could slip back into catastrophic levels of hunger faced last year.” The UN agency said that by October the WFP would be reaching around 45 per cent fewer people overall, while also reducing both cash and food volumes. If current levels of humanitarian assistance in Gaza are not sustained, up to 90 per cent of the population will face high levels of acute food insecurity by the end of the year, the WFP said. The Foreign Office has insisted the aid package announce last week will support hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. The money, announced by Miliband at the UN in New York, includes support for medical consultations, rehabilitation for children with blast injuries, safe water provision and mental health services. But it is not new funding and is part of the overall aid budget to Palestine of £127m, which it said was protected this year. In a written statement to the Commons in March, Cooper said the Government remained “committed to providing lifesaving assistance to Palestinians in Gaza” and was seeking to limit the impact of aid cuts on humanitarian crises across the Middle East. Monica Harding, a Liberal Democrat MP on the international development committee, said it was “appalling” that the World Food Programme expects to cut the number of people it can feed in Gaza. “The Government cannot truly speak of their commitment to the Palestinian people while these cuts remain in place,” she said. ‘The numbers are stark’ Concerns over the cuts to WFP Palestine were raised by Harding and her fellow committee member James Naish, a Labour MP, at a hearing with aid minister Kirsty McNeill earlier this month. Naish told The i Paper: “The numbers are stark – 1.4 million people in Gaza facing acute food insecurity by December, at a time when UK funding to the World Food Programme has fallen sharply since 2024.” He welcomed the Government’s recent shift on Israeli settlements, but said “this cannot be the limit of our ambition.” Dr Ellie Chowns, foreign affairs spokesperson for the Greens, said: “The UK Government has chosen again and again to slash the international aid, turning our back on the world’s most vulnerable and undermining global human security.” Aid minister McNeill told the hearing the Government remained committed to supporting Palestinians and, reflecting on discussions with the World Food Programme, said ministers faced “the stuff of nightmares” when making decisions about how to allocate limited humanitarian funding. Nick Dyer, interim chief of the Foreign Office, told the committee that the “issue in Gaza is not money; it is access”. He added: “Averting famine cannot be a measure of success. We know exactly why there is not the access, and we know exactly why the dual-use goods are not being allowed into Gaza: it is purely because of the actions of the Israeli Government.” The Foreign Office will continue to support the WFP and funding allocations are kept under review, The i Paper understands.