World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

ROME/VATICAN CITY – His Holiness Pope Francis this morning granted a private audience to Ertharin Cousin, Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).  The meeting took place immediately upon Cousin’s return from Syria and following her recent visit to Israel and Palestine.

JERICHO – Two United Nations agency heads today expressed concern at deteriorating food security in the West Bank and Gaza where one in three Palestinian households now struggle to feed their families.

JERUSALEM – The Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), Ertharin Cousin, will be in Israel and the State of Palestine this week to attend a conference and visit WFP operations.

JERUSALEM  – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is transporting more than one million date bars produced in the Gaza Strip to the West Bank; the second batch of locally produced school snacks to be sent by WFP from the impoverished strip.

KEREM SHALOM - Pallets of fortified date bars have left Gaza today, crossing Kerem Shalom to be transferred to the West Bank by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). This is the first batch of a total of 140 tons of locally-produced date bars (or 19 truckloads) that will be used in WFP's school feeding distributions in the West Bank.

Since the resurgence of conflict in Gaza on 27 December, WFP has distributed two month rations of food to more than 220,000 people.

As part of its Operation Lifeline Gaza, WFP has begun distributing nutritious date bars and high energy biscuits (HEBs) to thousands of displaced people in Gaza City.

WFP has so far distributed two-month and three-month rations to more than 137,000 people from its regular caseload of 265,000 of the non-refugee population of Gaza since the latest conflict broke out on 27 December.

WFP today responded to growing hunger needs in Gaza by launching Operation Lifeline Gaza, a global appeal to ramp up the distribution of food to people caught in the conflict in the occupied Palestinian territory.