Cairo: The United Nations says it has suspended food distribution in the southern Gaza city of Rafah due to lack of supplies and insecurity. It also said no aid trucks entered via a pier set up by the US for sea deliveries for the past two days. The UN has not specified how many people remain in Rafah after the Israeli military launched an intensified assault there on May 6, but there appears to be several hundred thousand.

Abeer Etefa, a spokesperson for the UN’s World Food Programme, warned that “humanitarian operations in Gaza are near collapse.” If food and other supplies don’t resume entering Gaza in “in massive quantities, famine-like conditions will spread,” she said

The main agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, on Tuesday announced the suspension of distribution in Rafah in a post on X, without elaborating.

Etefeh said the WFP had also stopped distribution in Rafah after exhausting its stocks. It continued “limited distributions” of reduced food parcels in central Gaza but “food parcel stocks will run out within days,” she said.