hunger

Starved and exhausted residents of Oleshky arrive in Ukraine after months of isolation, but some stay behind.

Starved and exhausted residents of the Russian-occupied Ukrainian town of Oleshky have crossed into Ukraine in a major evacuation operation of civilians, under the first humanitarian truce of its kind in more than four years of Moscow’s war.

The six-day ceasefire covering the town was reached with mediation efforts by US First Lady Melania Trump and help from Pope Leo XIV. It is the longest local pause in fighting since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour in 2022.

“Ukrainian citizens from Oleshky have crossed the Ukrainian border in the Chernihiv region. All of them will receive the assistance they need,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X, thanking the United States and the first lady for mediating.

“Further steps toward de-escalation and real progress toward peace are also needed,” he added.

Evacuees wrapped in blue and yellow Ukrainian flags stepped off buses at the Ukrainian-Belarusian border and reunited with family members.

Ukrainian officials met the evacuees with posters reading “You’re not alone” and “We embrace with our hearts”, while residents from nearby villages lined the highway waving flags and flashlights to greet them.

Forced to eat grass

Supply routes to Oleshky had been disrupted by fighting and drones. According to some residents, food deliveries were stopped in May, pushing hundreds of people into starvation.

One evacuee, an elderly man in a wheelchair, told the Reuters news agency that he had lost 20kg (44lbs) over the past year, becoming so weak he required hospital treatment.

Another evacuee, Svitlana Yermakova, told Reuters they had to eat grass to survive.

“We chopped grass and squash… just to hold on,” she said, adding that she risked riding by bicycle through minefields to a nearby village to get food for herself and her dog.

To reach Ukrainian-held territory, Oleshky residents had to take a complicated route to leave the devastated town just a few kilometres from the front line.

They first crossed Crimea by bus to the Russian town of Anapa before flying to Belarus, from where they crossed into Ukraine.

Ambulances lined the street, and several large military tents were erected, where hot meals, tea and medical aid were provided.

Russian and Ukrainian officials say the ceasefire in Oleshky has held since Tuesday, allowing them to de-mine the roads and bring food, medicines and other supplies into the town again.

The truce is due to end on Sunday evening.

Some stay behind

Some residents have decided to remain in Oleshky, despite the ongoing lack of gas, electricity and running water.

Russian Human Rights Commissioner Yana Lantratova said living conditions in the occupied Oleshky remained difficult, pledging she would continue to work with her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Lubinets, to help those who stayed.

“The mission has come to an end,” she said on Telegram. “We have agreed to carry out regular humanitarian missions, which is a very important step.”

Oleshky had a pre-war population of about 24,000, which plunged to an estimated 1,700 before the evacuation.

Ukrainian officials have not said exactly how many residents were evacuated or how many remained.

Despite the ceasefire in Oleshky, fighting rages on in other parts of the front, with Russia and Ukraine keeping up drone attacks against each other.

Tulkarem, occupied West Bank – Fawza Awad, a 75-year-old widow, couldn’t hold back her tears as she described the living conditions she has endured since being displaced from the Tulkarem refugee camp in January 2025 – a result of an Israeli military operation that targeted refugee camps in the northern West Bank, forcibly displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians from their homes.

With little money, Fawza and her family found shelter where they could: a small, unfinished house in Tulkarem belonging to her daughter. She currently lives in a portion of the structure alongside her son, his wife, and their child.

The family previously relied on limited financial and food assistance provided by the World Food Programme (WFP), but has not received aid in the past five months.

The UN agency officially announced a 50 percent reduction in the number of food aid recipients in the occupied West Bank in September, citing “critical funding constraints”, the result of reduced funding from international funders. Food needs, conversely, have more than doubled since 2023, when Israel began its genocidal war on Gaza, and increased attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank.

The WFP noted at the time that approximately 900,000 people in the West Bank are currently suffering from food insecurity.

In a statement given to Al Jazeera, the WFP confirmed that some families had stopped receiving aid before the official announcement in September.

Fawza and her family have been left to fend for themselves. There is no prospect of returning to her old home – she says that the Israeli army has completely demolished the structure, replacing it with a wide road to facilitate the movement of its military vehicles.

She added that one of her sons has been detained by Israel since 2024, while her other sons, who previously worked inside Israel, are now all unemployed.

“I suffer from asthma and high blood pressure, requiring monthly medication that costs at least 200 shekels ($64), an expense no one covers for me. We used to receive modest food aid barely enough for two or three people, but now that has stopped completely,” Fawza told Al Jazeera.

‘Not even bread’

Not far away, in the al-Muwahhad School building in the Thannabeh suburb of Tulkarem, more than 1,000 Palestinians displaced from the Tulkarem and Nur Shams refugee camps are sheltering, having found nowhere else to go and unable to pay rent.

Among them are Rabab Qasim, 47, her husband Talib Abu Sarriya, 72, and their three children. For the second consecutive year, they have been living in a small, 30-square-metre (320sq-foot) room on the ground floor of the school, with no source of income and totally reliant on aid.

For the past three months, the family has received no aid whatsoever following the WFP food assistance cut.

“I suffer from a herniated disc in my back, requiring monthly treatment that costs 300 shekels ($96) – an amount I cannot afford,” Rabab said. “I also need physical therapy, which I have never been able to access because I cannot pay for it. I sleep on a worn-out mattress on the floor; all I wish for is to be able to buy a bed.”

Talib told Al Jazeera that the family are often unable to find bread or a meal, and frequently go to sleep hungry. It’s a far cry from their former life in the Tulkarem refugee camp, where he once owned a small vegetable stall. It was a modest livelihood, but one that gave them enough to get by.

Alone in the struggle

The WFP has blamed increasing Israeli pogroms and forced displacements in the West Bank for devastating livelihoods, deepening hunger, and pushing families into even more severe crises. The latest quarterly food security analysis conducted by the WFP indicates that 76 percent of Palestinian households in the West Bank have experienced a significant decline in income.

According to the analysis, 12 percent of the population has poor food consumption, and one-third of households cannot afford a healthy diet due to rapidly deteriorating economic conditions. Rural areas and the governorates in the southern occupied West Bank have been the hardest hit.

Said al-Amour, 61, a resident of Khirbet al-Rakeez in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, told Al Jazeera that he and his 14-person family haven’t received any assistance from the WFP for the past seven months.

In April 2025, while confronting repeated attacks by settlers on the village, Said says he was shot by a settler. The injury resulted in the amputation of his leg and a permanent disability; he continues to face periodic assaults and beatings whenever he encounters the settlers – part of the ongoing pogrom against Palestinians in the West Bank.

“They are trying to steal our land. I refuse to let them take it, and I will continue to defend it, but I am paying a heavy price. Now, they have cut off the aid I used to receive that helped my family remain steadfast here,” he told Al Jazeera.

Due to the amputation of his leg, al-Amour requires monthly medical treatment costing at least 1,200 shekels ($385), an expense that he cannot afford. He has no source of income other than a few olive trees, which settlers frequently attempt to seize.

Collapse of livelihoods

In cooperation with its partners, the WFP still provides assistance to 200,000 Palestinians in the West Bank through cash transfers, food vouchers, direct food supplies, livelihood programmes, and nutritional services.

However, the WFP told Al Jazeera that it simply does not have the resources to cover the needs of all the families in the West Bank requiring assistance.

“The cessation of aid does not imply that a beneficiary is ineligible; rather, it is a broad decision affecting all current beneficiaries, regardless of the outcome of their individual assessment,” the WFP said. “It is possible that changes may occur, and aid could be reinstated for some beneficiaries; in such cases, they would be contacted and notified via text message.”

Economist and human rights activist Ubai Aboudi told Al Jazeera that the West Bank is facing a humanitarian crisis exacerbated by the loss of the WFP food aid, as well as a financial crisis affecting the Palestinian Authority (PA). Israel has completely withheld the customs revenues it collects on behalf of the PA since May 2025, leaving the authority unable to pay public sector salaries.

Aboudi noted other factors, such as the tens of thousands of Palestinians previously employed in Israel and illegal settlements in the West Bank who have been out of work since October 2023, when Israel stopped giving them work permits.

He also added that Israeli restrictions on Palestinian and international NGOs, including the suspension of registration for 37 international organisations and the closure of some local groups, have further limited the ability to provide humanitarian assistance.

“Around half a million Palestinian families need food assistance, while the actual need may be greater,” Aboudi said. “With aid declining from the World Food Programme and other sources, many families are unable to secure food.”

For every five plates of food served around the world, roughly one ends up in the bin. That adds up to more than a billion tonnes of food a year.

Meanwhile, 645 million people, about one in 13 of the world’s population, went hungry in 2025, according to the UN.

That gap is the focus of World Food Day on October 16, the annual UN observance marking the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 1945. This year’s theme, “Innovate today, nourish tomorrow”, calls for food systems that feed more people and waste less.

In this visual explainer, Al Jazeera looks at global hunger, which countries waste the most food and simple ways to waste less at home.

Hunger is falling, slowly

Global hunger has fallen for a third year in a row, but it remains above levels seen before the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the UN’s annual State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, an estimated 645 million people, or 7.8 percent of the world’s population, faced hunger in 2025. That is down from 8.1 percent in 2024 and a peak of 8.6 percent in 2022, but still about 61 million more people than in 2019.

Where are people the most hungry?

Africa has more hungry people than any other region.

In 2025, an estimated 309 million people in Africa were undernourished. That is one in five people on the continent and almost half of the world’s hungry people.

By comparison, 292 million people in Asia (6 percent of the population) and 32 million in Latin America and the Caribbean (4.8 percent) were undernourished.

The 2026 Global Hunger Index shows a similar pattern at the country level. The index scores countries out of 100, combining undernourishment with child stunting, child wasting and child mortality. Scores of 35 or more are considered “alarming”.

Hunger is classed as alarming in eight countries, seven of them in Africa. Somalia has the worst score of the 122 countries ranked, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad and Madagascar.

Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi and Yemen were also classed as alarming, but conflict and data gaps meant the index could not calculate their scores.

At the same time, a large share of the food the world grows never reaches a plate.

How much food is wasted every year?

Food is lost and wasted at every stage of its journey from farm to table.

According to the FAO, about 13 percent of the food produced globally is lost after harvest and before it reaches shops, spoiling in storage, during transport or in processing. Fruits and vegetables suffer the highest losses.

Food lost before it reaches shops is worth more than $400bn a year, according to the FAO.

Shops, restaurants and households then throw away almost a fifth of the food available to consumers, about 1.05 billion tonnes in 2022, according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). That is equivalent to 52.5 million trucks, each carrying 20 tonnes.

Households account for the most, 60 percent, followed by restaurants and other food services at 28 percent and shops at 12 percent.

How to reduce food waste at home

Most food waste happens at home, which means households can make a real difference. Here are some simple steps recommended by food waste campaigners and UN agencies:

1. Plan before you shop: Check what you already have, plan meals for the week and shop with a list to avoid buying more than you need.
2. Understand date labels: “Use by” dates are about safety, but “best before” dates are about quality. Food is often still safe to eat after its “best before” date.
3. Store food properly: Keep your fridge at 5C (41F) or below, and store fruit and vegetables where they last longest. Bananas, for example, speed up the ripening of other fruit nearby.
4. Use the freezer: Bread, cooked meals, meat and many fruits and vegetables can be frozen before they go off.
5. Cook the right amount: Measuring portions, especially for rice and pasta, cuts down on leftovers that get thrown away.
6. Eat the oldest food first: Move older items to the front of the fridge and cupboard so they get used before newer ones.
7. Use leftovers and scraps: Turn leftovers into new meals, and use vegetable peels and stalks in soups and stocks.
8. Compost what you can’t eat: Composting inedible parts such as peels and eggshells keeps them out of landfills, where rotting food releases methane.

Which country wastes the most?

On average, every person in the world wastes about 132kg (291 pounds) of food a year, roughly the weight of two adults. Of that, 79kg (174 pounds) was thrown away at home.

But the amount varies widely. Hotter countries tend to waste more at home, UNEP says, possibly because of more fresh produce and less refrigeration.

The Maldives wastes the most food, with each person throwing away about 260kg (573 pounds) a year, about twice the global average. Syria, the Dominican Republic, Seychelles, Mexico and Tunisia follow, each wasting more than 210kg (463 pounds) per person, according to UN estimates.

Spain recorded some of the lowest levels, at around 39kg (86 pounds) or less per person.

What does food waste cost?

Food loss and waste costs the global economy more than $1 trillion a year, according to the UN.

To put that in perspective, what else could $1 trillion buy?

Use the + buttons to add items to your cart and see how the money would be spent across 35 categories.

Throwing food away also wastes the money, land and energy used to produce it.

About 1.4 billion hectares (3.5 billion acres) of land, or 28 percent of the world’s agricultural land, is used to grow food that is never eaten. That is an area larger than Canada.

Food loss and waste also generate an estimated 8 to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, including methane released as food rots in landfills.

The halt to commercial shipments, including fruit and winter clothing, cuts off a key source of critical supplies.

Israeli authorities say no commercial goods have entered Gaza for two days, citing what they claim is a tax dispute between local merchants and Hamas.

COGAT, or the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the Israeli military body that “oversees humanitarian affairs” in Gaza, announced the halt on Wednesday.

COGAT claimed that local merchants “made the decision in response to a 10,000 shekel ($3,220) fee imposed by Hamas on each truck entering Gaza” as well as a demand for 30 percent of all sales in Gaza to be carried out in cash.

This decision is expected to impact a crucial source of food and goods for the 2.1 million people in the Strip, who are completely reliant on Israel’s border crossings in a territory that is still suffering from famine.

Gaza’s government media office refuted the claims on Thursday and condemned the “blatant disinformation campaign and false statement”.

The media office instead said it was an attempt “to hold the government apparatus in Gaza responsible for the disruption of truck entry” and that the fee was a voluntary payment to a fund providing aid for those in need, such as widows and orphans.

It also said that cash payments were encouraged due to what it described as an acute cash shortage in the war-torn territory, but were never a mandatory requirement.

An already dire humanitarian crisis

The halt to commercial shipments, including fruit and winter clothing, cuts off a key source of food and other critical supplies as fears mount ahead of the encroaching winter.

Aid groups generally bring in staples such as flour, while merchants import more perishable foods like fruits and meat, according to data released earlier this year by COGAT.

The suspension is raising fears about affordability, with humanitarian workers saying a combination of aid and a robust commercial market is needed to keep prices under control.

“The humanitarian sector on its own cannot meet the needs of all the people,” said Shaina Low, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council. “The markets need to be functioning.”

Local merchants step in

The head of Gaza’s private truckers union, Nahed Sheheiber, denied the Israeli narrative, saying: “The Israeli coordinator is claiming that Gaza’s merchants are responsible, but the truth is that the Israelis are the ones who imposed the restrictions.”

Following COGAT’s announcement, Sheheiber’s union met with Gaza’s Ministry of Economy to express concern and say Israel was citing fees levied by the ministry as a pretext to cut off commercial goods.

A global hunger monitor in July warned that more than two-thirds of people in Gaza could face acute hunger by the year-end.

Israel is obliged under a US-mediated agreement to allow a minimum of 600 trucks carrying humanitarian aid to enter Gaza each day.

Diplomats say that far fewer than 600 trucks normally enter Gaza each day. Sheheiber said the figure was closer to 300, with two-thirds carrying commercial goods.