{"id":312331,"date":"2025-10-20T15:42:57","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T19:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/?post_type=document&p=312331"},"modified":"2025-10-21T15:43:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T19:43:14","slug":"wfp-press-release-20oct25","status":"publish","type":"document","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/document\/wfp-press-release-20oct25\/","title":{"rendered":"As ceasefire takes hold, Gaza\u2019s bakeries fire up to fight hunger"},"content":{"rendered":"

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20 October 2025<\/p>\n

Tens of thousands of bundles of flatbread are being delivered daily, as part of a broader WFP effort to scale up food assistance to reach 1.6 million people<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Even before the ceasefire, WFP-supported bakeries in Gaza had already resumed bread production, churning out 100,000 loaves a day for hungry residents. Photo: WFP\/Maxime Le Lijour<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Even before the guns fell silent in Gaza, the cavernous Nuseirat bakery was back in service, churning out hundreds of hot, fragrant loaves for famished residents.<\/p>\n

It was the first time the bakery\u2019s ovens had fired up in months, as truckloads of flour and other basics finally began to reenter the Strip. For displaced families like Fatima\u2019s – living in tents and choking on burning plastic and other trash to cook the little food they have – the fresh flatbread offers a slice of normality, after months of hunger and hardship.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I light a fire, I know I\u2019m risking my child\u2019s health,\u201d says Fatima, who has a daughter with severe respiratory problems. \u201cReceiving bread felt like a blessing,\u201d she adds of the packages of pita she now picks up near her tent camp in the central Gazan town of Deir al-Balah.<\/p>\n

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Fatima – here with one of her daughters – considers the fresh pita a “blessing.” Photo: WFP\/Maxime Le Lijour<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>

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As a ceasefire takes hold in Gaza, the bakeries offer a tangible sign that a precarious normality is returning. The loaves rolling out of their fiery ovens are part of a massive and rapid scale-up of WFP food assistance for people facing severe and even catastrophic hunger – with the aim of feeding up to 1.6 million in the first three months. Trucks of WFP food assistance now entering the Strip are supporting bakeries, nutrition programs and general food distributions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people of Gaza have been desperately waiting for this moment,\u201d says Antoine Renard, WFP Representative and Country Director in Palestine. \u201cThey have been displaced multiple times – chased by the threat of hunger and malnutrition, and making impossible choices to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

A sense of normality<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Deliveries of fresh flatbread in Gaza, offering a sense of normality as the ceasefire takes hold. Photo: WFP\/Maxime Le Lijour<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Days before the ceasefire, WFP had restarted nine out of the 30 bakeries it once supported in the enclave. Already, our partners are delivering more than 100,000 packages daily of the pita, or flatbread, to families in makeshift shelters and camps. \u00a0Those distributions will expand as conditions allow more food to enter the Strip and bakeries to reopen.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe smell of bread gives people hope that things are going to get back to normal,\u201d says Samer Abdeljaber, WFP Regional Director for the Middle East, North Africa & Eastern Europe. As more food reaches hungry people, he adds, \u201canxiety levels go down, so they can trust that more food is going to come in the next days.\u201d<\/p>\n

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With the guns falling silent in Gaza, thousands of people are on the move. Photo: WFP<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

From a nearly bare-bones tent, mother Fatima tears up as she describes how her family fled their home in Gaza City on the first day of the war, in 2023, carrying nothing with them. Like many in Gaza, the family moved from one place to another, searching for safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cFood is a major challenge,\u201d Fatima says. Her two small daughters have not eaten fresh produce, or foods with bone-building calcium, in months. Both have medical conditions, including one requiring a ventilator.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to knock on doors, one by one, just to get help and keep them alive,\u201d Fatima adds.<\/p>\n

The \u2018miracle\u2019 of bread<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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WFP is scaling up food assistance in Gaza to reach up to three million people in the first three months. Photo: WFP\/Jaber Badwan<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The ceasefire in Gaza – declared just over two years after the war broke out – comes as hospitals, commerce and other essential services are severely crippled. If the ceasefire holds, WFP and other humanitarians hope to turn the tide.<\/p>\n

Tens of thousands of metric tonnes of our food are ready for dispatch or heading to the Strip. We have also begun ramping up nutritional support to pregnant and breastfeeding women, with plans to further expand in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith access, we can bring in the supplies in big volumes, so we can increase the number of bakeries,\u201d WFP\u2019s Renard says. \u201cWe can restore our distribution with food parcels, and we can bring down the high levels of malnutrition.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ahmed, here with his pregnant wife, says the fresh bread feels like “miracle” after months of hardship. Photo: WFP\/Maxime Le Lijour<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

For some like Ahmed, the loaves of pita are a first step toward recovery. His wife, nine months pregnant, is severely malnourished. The baby, he says, is underweight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe used to stand in line for five or six hours for a single plate of food,\u201d Ahmed says of the months of wartime hardship. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t buy anything from the market – there was no cash, no work, no income.\u201d<\/p>\n

The packages of bakery-fresh pita \u201cfelt like a miracle,\u201d he adds. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to describe the feeling. It was the first time in a long time we had something so basic.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  20 October 2025 Tens of thousands of bundles of flatbread are being delivered daily, as part of a broader WFP effort to scale up food assistance to reach 1.6 million people Even before the guns fell silent in Gaza, the cavernous Nuseirat bakery was back in service, churning out hundreds of hot, fragrant loaves […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[1329,6926],"document-source":[2109],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[1769,1945,2265,2057,2005,1841],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[6542],"class_list":["post-312331","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-press-release","document-category-stories","document-source-world-food-programme-wfp","document-subject-armed-conflict","document-subject-assistance","document-subject-ceasefire","document-subject-food","document-subject-gaza-strip","document-subject-women","entity-united-nations-system","document-language-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/312331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/312331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":312338,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/312331\/revisions\/312338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=312331"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=312331"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=312331"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=312331"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=312331"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=312331"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=312331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}