Three bakeries resume operations in Gaza with UN aid

Three bakeries in Gaza City resumed operations on Sunday with the help of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).

According to eyewitness reports, thousands of people showed up to buy food shortly after the announcement was made that bread would be baked in the bakeries again.

Israeli airstrikes have destroyed many of the city's bakeries, and according to Palestinian sources, the WFP had now provided gas and repaired bread-making machines to allow baking to resume.

Palestinian officials say there were around 140 bakeries in the Gaza Strip that supplied the majority of the population with bread.

However, since the beginning of Israel's bombardment of Gaza after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, Palestinians have had to resort to baking bread in open fires and clay ovens.

Israel is under increasing pressure to allow more humanitarian aid supplies into the sealed-off strip. Aid organisations describe the situation as catastrophic and say more than a million people are at risk of starvation.

More than 33,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the outbreak of war on October 7, according to health officials in the Hamas-led region.

The head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) believes that famine is already occurring in parts of the Gaza Strip.

The official classification as a famine means that at least 20% of the population is affected by extreme food shortages. In addition, at least one in three children suffers from acute malnutrition.