UN agency closes its remaining Gaza bakeries as food supplies dwindle under Israeli blockade

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The U.N. food agency is closing all of its bakeries in the Gaza Strip, officials said Tuesday, as supplies dwindle after Israel sealed off the territory from all imports nearly a month ago.

Israel, which later resumed its offensive to pressure the Hamas militant group into accepting changes to their ceasefire agreement, said enough food had entered Gaza during the six-week truce to sustain the territory's roughly 2 million Palestinians for a long time.

U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Israel’s assertion was “ridiculous,” calling the food shortage very critical. The organization is “at the tail end of our supplies” and a lack of flour and cooking oil are forcing the bakeries to close, Dujarric said Tuesday.

Markets largely emptied weeks ago. U.N. agencies say the supplies they built up during the truce are running out. Gaza is heavily reliant on international aid because the war has destroyed almost all of its food production capability.

Mohammed al-Kurd, a father of 12, said his children go to bed without dinner.

“We tell them to be patient and that we will bring flour in the morning,” he said. “We lie to them and to ourselves.”

For the second consecutive day, Israel’s military warned residents of Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah to immediately evacuate, a sign that it could soon launch a major ground operation. At least 140,000 people were under orders to leave, according to the head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.

A World Food Program memo circulated to aid groups said it could no longer operate its remaining bakeries, which produce the bread on which many rely. The U.N. agency said it was prioritizing its remaining stocks to provide emergency food aid and expand hot meal distribution. WFP spokespeople didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said WFP was closing its remaining 19 bakeries after shuttering six last month. She said hundreds of thousands of people relied on them.

The Israeli military body in charge of Palestinian affairs, known as COGAT, said more than 25,000 trucks entered Gaza during the ceasefire, carrying nearly 450,000 tons of aid. It said the amount represented around a third of what has entered during the war.

“There is enough food for a long period of time, if Hamas lets the civilians have it,” it said.

U.N. agencies and aid groups say they struggled to bring in and distribute aid before the ceasefire took hold in January. Their estimates for how much aid reached people in Gaza were consistently lower than COGAT’s, which were based on how much entered through border crossings.

Gaza's Health Ministry reported that at least 42 bodies and more than 180 wounded arrived at hospitals over the past 24 hours. At least 1,042 Palestinians have been killed in the two weeks since Israel broke the ceasefire and resumed heavy bombardments.

The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages. Hamas is still holding 59 captives — 24 believed to be alive — after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Israel's offensive has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, including hundreds killed in strikes since the ceasefire ended, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't say whether those killed are civilians or combatants. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.

Israel sealed off Gaza from all aid at the start of the war but later relented under pressure from Washington. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, which took credit for helping to broker the ceasefire, has expressed full support for Israel's actions, including its decision to end the truce.

Israel has demanded that Hamas release several hostages before further talks on ending the war. Those negotiations were supposed to begin in early February. It has also insisted that Hamas disarm and leave Gaza, conditions that weren't part of the ceasefire agreement.

Hamas has called for implementing the agreement, in which the remaining hostages would be released in exchange for the release of more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal.

Palestinians mourned Mohamed Salah Bardawil, a journalist with Hamas-affiliated Aqsa Radio who was killed along with his wife and three children by an Israeli strike early Tuesday at their home in southern Gaza.

Associated Press footage showed the building in Khan Younis collapsed, with dried blood splattered on the rubble. A child’s school notebook, dust-covered dolls and clothing lay half-buried in the ruins. The Israeli military declined to comment.

The journalist is the nephew of Salah Bardawil, a well-known member of Hamas’ political bureau who was killed in an Israeli strike that also killed his wife last month.

Israeli strikes have killed more than 170 journalists and media workers since the war began, the Committee to Protect Journalists has estimated.

Mednick reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writers Fatma Khaled in Cairo and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Palestinians receive bags of flour and other humanitarian aid distributed by UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip on Tuesday, April 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians receive bags of flour and other humanitarian aid distributed by UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip on Tuesday, April 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians receive bags of flour and other humanitarian aid distributed by UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip on Tuesday, April 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians receive bags of flour and other humanitarian aid distributed by UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip on Tuesday, April 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Buildings that were destroyed during the Israeli ground and air operations stand in northern of Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Tuesday, April 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Buildings that were destroyed during the Israeli ground and air operations stand in northern of Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Tuesday, April 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Palestinians receive bags of flour and other humanitarian aid distributed by UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip on Tuesday, April 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians receive bags of flour and other humanitarian aid distributed by UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip on Tuesday, April 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Mourners carry the bodies of three members of Dahouh family, killed when an Israeli army strike hit their tent, before their burial at the hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip on Tuesday, April 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Mourners carry the bodies of three members of Dahouh family, killed when an Israeli army strike hit their tent, before their burial at the hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip on Tuesday, April 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinian children play on swings amid the rubble during Eid al-Fitr in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip, on Monday, March 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinian girls dressed for Eid al-Fitr celebrations walk next to destructions in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip on Monday, March 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Israel struck tents outside two major hospitals in the Gaza Strip overnight, killing at least two people, including a local reporter, and wounding nine, including six journalists, Palestinian medics said. Separate strikes killed at least 15 others across the Gaza Strip, according to hospitals.

Israel ended a ceasefire with Hamas in March and has cut off all food, fuel and humanitarian aid to Gaza — a tactic that rights groups say is a war crime — while issuing new displacement orders that have forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee Israeli bombardments and ground operations.

Israel's war in Gaza, now in its 18th month, has killed over 50,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Israel has vowed to escalate the war until Hamas returns dozens of remaining hostages, disarms and leaves the territory.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, and taking 251 others hostage. The group still holds 59 captives — 24 of whom are believed to be alive.

Here is the latest:

The head of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon says the balance of force in the country has now “significantly changed” which may finally enable slow progress toward a more permanent ceasefire, “but this may still take a long time.”

Lt. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro Sáenz told the U.N. Security Council Monday that an internal political process could be required to deal with key issues including dealing with Hezbollah fighters and other armed groups.

Sáenz said other issues that need to be tackled are military capabilities “and a political track between Lebanon and Israel to deal with questions of sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as border demarcation.”

He said Lebanon’s consent to the deployment of the 10,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL, which faces increasing threats from disinformation and misinformation, is also key.

To counter disinformation and misinformation, Sáenz said UNIFIL must establish “a strong fact-based narrative” to avoid misperceptions, for example, that U.N. peacekeepers work at the behest of Israel, have a hidden agenda, and are an occupation force.

The leaders of the United Nations’ humanitarian agencies issued a dire joint warning about Gaza on Monday, calling for world leaders “to ensure the basic principles of international humanitarian law are upheld.”

The plea from humanitarian chiefs come as Israel has blocked the entrance of commercial and humanitarian supplies to Gaza for more than a month while issuing new displacement orders that have forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee once again.

“More than 2.1 million people are trapped, bombed and starved again, while, at crossing points, food, medicine, fuel and shelter supplies are piling up, and vital equipment is stuck,” directors and leaders of WHO, UNICEF, UNOPS, UNRWA, WFP and OCHA said in a statement. “Over 1,000 children have reportedly been killed or injured in just the first week after the breakdown of the ceasefire, the highest one-week death toll among children in Gaza in the past year.”

They added that “we are witnessing acts of war in Gaza that show an utter disregard for human life.”

Gaza’s Health Ministry said over the last 24 hours local hospitals have received the bodies of 57 people killed by Israeli strikes. Another 137 people have been wounded, it said.

Monday’s update brings the total Palestinian death toll from the 18-month Israel-Hamas war to 50,752, with more 115,475 wounded.

The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its records, but says more than half the dead are women and children.

Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, shops were closed on Monday and there were few cars on the streets of Ramallah where the Western-backed Palestinian Authority is headquartered.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state. The Palestinian Authority administers population centers with limited autonomy.

French President Emmanuel Macron has also urged the lifting of Israel’s blockade on humanitarian aid.

Macron was in Cairo on Monday to meet with President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and later with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, close Western allies, who are also calling for a ceasefire.

Israel ended its truce with Hamas last month and cut off all imports of food, fuel and humanitarian aid to the territory’s 2 million Palestinians to try and pressure Hamas to accept new terms in their ceasefire agreement.

Egypt and the Gulf nation of Qatar have served as key mediators with Hamas.

The military said Monday that soldiers killed the teen who endangered motorists on a road in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Sunday that a Palestinian-American teen was killed in the incident and two others were injured, one in critical condition.

The violence occurred near Turmus Aya, a town with a sizable population of Palestinian-Americans.

The strike hit a media tent outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, setting it ablaze, killing Yousef al-Faqawi, a reporter for the Palestine Today news website and another man. Six other reporters were wounded in that strike.

The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas militant, without providing further information.

Israel also struck tents on the edge of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza.

Nasser Hospital also said it received 13 bodies, including six women and four children, from separate strikes overnight. Al-Aqsa Hospital said two people were killed and three wounded in a strike on a home in Deir al-Balah.

This story has been corrected to show that Palestine Today is a news website, not a TV station.

Smoke rises to the sky after an explosion in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Palestinian women walk past closed shops during a general strike to protest the war in Gaza, in the Old City of Jerusalem, Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Palestinians mourn their relatives who were killed by an Israeli airstrike, at the hospital morgue in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, on Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians retrieve a body from the rubble of a building destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, on Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians search for survivors amid the debris of a building destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, on Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians search for survivors amid the debris of a building destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, on Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Smoke rises to the sky following an Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

A Palestinian girl struggles as she and others try to get donated food at a distribution center in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians wait to get donated food at a distribution center in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

A woman looks at the destroyed house of journalist Islam Meqdad, where she was killed along with her son and five other family members in an Israeli army strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)