Hunger

Forty-two million face food aid delays after the nation’s top Court lets US president pause full SNAP payments.

The United States Supreme Court has allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to temporarily withhold about $4bn in federal food aid for November, leaving 42 million low-income Americans in need uncertain about their benefits amid the nation’s longest-ever government shutdown.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued the administrative stay on Friday, giving a lower court more time to assess the administration’s request to only partially fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), better known as food stamps.

The SNAP programme supports Americans whose income falls below 130 percent of the federal poverty line. For the 2026 fiscal year, the maximum monthly benefit is $298 for an individual and $546 for a two-person household.

The Supreme Court order pauses a ruling by a federal judge in Rhode Island that had required the government to immediately release the full amount of funding.

The stay will remain in place until two days after the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston rules on whether to block the lower court’s decision. SNAP typically costs between $8.5bn and $9bn each month.

Earlier this week, District Judge John McConnell, appointed by former President Barack Obama, accused the Trump administration of withholding SNAP funds for “political reasons”. His ruling ordered the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to use money from a separate child nutrition fund, worth more than $23bn and financed through tariffs, to cover the shortfall in food assistance.

‘Judicial activism at its worst’

The administration had planned to provide $4.65bn in emergency funding, half the amount needed for full benefits. It argued that McConnell’s ruling would “sow further shutdown chaos” and prompt “a run on the bank by way of judicial fiat”, according to filings by the Department of Justice.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi praised the Supreme Court’s intervention, calling McConnell’s order “judicial activism at its worst”.

The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday refused to immediately halt McConnell’s ruling before the Supreme Court’s stay was announced. The USDA had already informed state governments that it was preparing to distribute full SNAP payments, triggering confusion among officials and recipients as the administration appealed.

SNAP benefits lapsed at the start of November, for the first time in the programme’s six-decade history. Many recipients have since turned to food pantries or cut back on essentials like medication to stretch their limited budgets.

The next hearing in the 1st Circuit is expected soon, while millions of families wait to see whether full benefits will resume.

Prominent members of Tunisia’s political opposition have announced they will be joining a collective hunger strike in solidarity with jailed politician Jawhar Ben Mbarek, whose health they say has severely deteriorated after nine days without food.

Ben Mbarek, the cofounder of Tunisia’s main opposition alliance, the National Salvation Front, launched a hunger strike last week to protest his detention since February 2023.

Ben Mbarek’s father, veteran activist Ezzeddine Hazgui, said during a news conference in the capital Tunis on Friday that his son is in a “worrisome condition, and his health is deteriorating”.

Hazgui said his family would launch a hunger strike in solidarity with his jailed son.

“We will not forgive [Tunisian President] Kais Saied,” he added.

The leaders of Tunisia’s major opposition parties also declared on Friday that they would go on hunger strike in solidarity with Ben Mbarek.

Among them is Issam Chebbi, the leader of the centrist Al Joumhouri (Republican) Party, who is also behind bars after being convicted in the same mass trial as Ben Mbarek earlier this year. Wissam Sghaier, another Al Joumhouri leader, said some party members would follow suit.

Rached Ghannouchi, the 84-year-old leader of the Ennahdha party, who is also serving a hefty prison sentence, announced he was joining the hunger protest.

Ghannouchi was convicted in July of “conspiring against state security”, adding to previous convictions, including money laundering, for which he has been sentenced to more than 20 years in prison and for which he claims innocence.

A post on his official Facebook page said Ghannouchi’s hunger strike sought to support Ben Mbarek, but he was also taking a stand to defend “the independence of justice and freedom in the country”.

Ben Mbarek was sentenced in April to 18 years behind bars on charges of “conspiracy against state security” and “belonging to a terrorist group”, in a mass trial slammed by human rights groups as politically motivated.

Rights groups have warned of a sharp decline in civil liberties in the North African country since Saied won the presidency in 2019.

A sweeping power grab in July 2021, when he dissolved parliament and expanded executive power so he could rule by decree, saw Saied jail many of his critics. That decree was later enshrined in a new constitution – ratified by a widely boycotted 2022 referendum – while media figures and lawyers critical of Saied have also been prosecuted and detained under a harsh “fake news” law enacted the same year.

Most recently, lawyer and outspoken Saied critic Ahmed Souab was sentenced to five years in prison on October 31 under Decree Law 54, as the legislation is known.

The Tunisian League for Human Rights said there have been “numerous attempts” to persuade Ben Mbarek to suspend his hunger strike, but he has refused, saying he is “committed to maintain it until the injustice inflicted upon him is lifted”.

Prison authorities denied on Wednesday that the health of any of its prisoners had deteriorated because of a hunger strike.

The Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK said questions have been raised regarding the prison administration’s compliance with laws governing medical care for detainees on hunger strike and the “safeguarding of their right to physical safety and human dignity”.

“Tunisian law explicitly stipulates the state’s responsibility to protect the life of any prisoner, even if that person chooses hunger strike as a form of protest,” the rights group said in a statement on Friday.

“The prison administration is therefore obliged to ensure appropriate medical care and regular monitoring,” it said, adding that Ben Mbarek’s protest reflects “a broader climate of political and social tension that transcends his personal situation”.

“His action represents a form of protest against detention conditions and judicial processes that many view as influenced by current political polarisation,” the group said.

“Ultimately, the case of Jawhar Ben Mbarek exposes a deeper crisis concerning respect for the rule of law and the principle of accountability,” it added.

يواصل أستاذ القانون الدستوري جوهر بن مبارك إضرابه المفتوح عن الطعام في محبسه منذ 29 أكتوبر الماضي داخل السجن المدني ببلي (ولاية نابل)، احتجاجاً على اعتقاله فيما يُعرف بقضية “التآمر على أمن الدولة”.

وتظهر المعطيات المتوفرة أن الحالة الصحية لبن مبارك تزداد هشاشة مع استمرار… pic.twitter.com/HrHwe14juE

— المنظمة العربية لحقوق الإنسان (@AohrUk_ar) November 7, 2025

Translation: Constitutional law professor Jawhar Ben Mbarek continues his open-ended hunger strike in his place of detention since October 29 inside the civil prison of Belli (Nabeul Governorate), in protest against his arrest in what is known as the “conspiracy against state security” case.

Available data show that Ben Mbarek’s health condition is becoming increasingly fragile with the continued complete abstention from food, which places his physical state in a critical phase requiring precise and constant medical monitoring.

WFP says a ‘deepening hunger crisis’ is unfolding and that it may have to pause food aid due to record low funding.

The number of people facing emergency levels of hunger in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has nearly doubled since last year, the United Nations has warned.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday a “deepening hunger crisis” was unfolding in the region, but warned it was only able to reach a fraction of those in need due to acute funding shortages and access difficulties.

“We’re at historically low levels of funding. We’ve probably received about $150m this year,” said Cynthia Jones, country director of the WFP for the DRC, pointing to a need for $350m to help people in desperate need in the West African country.

“One in three people in DRC’s eastern provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu, Ituri, and Tanganyika are facing crisis levels of hunger or worse. That’s over 10 million people,” Jones said.

“Of that, an alarming three million people are in emergency levels of hunger,” she told a media briefing in Geneva.

She said this higher level meant people were facing extreme gaps in food consumption and very high levels of malnutrition, adding that the numbers of people that are facing emergency levels of hunger is surging.

“It has almost doubled since last year,” said Jones. “People are already dying of hunger.”

Years-long conflict

The area has been rocked by more than a year of fighting. The Rwanda-backed M23 armed group has seized swaths of the eastern DRC since taking up arms again in 2021, compounding a humanitarian crisis and the more than three-decade conflict in the region.

The armed group’s lightning offensive saw it capture the key eastern cities of Goma and Bukavu, near the border with Rwanda. It has set up an administration there parallel to the government in Kinshasa and taken control of nearby mines.

Rwanda has denied supporting the rebels. Both M23 and Congolese forces have been accused of carrying out atrocities.

Jones said the WFP was facing “a complete halt of all emergency food assistance in the eastern provinces” from February or March 2026.

She added that the two airports in the east, Goma and Bukavu, had been shut for months.

WFP wants an air bridge set up between neighbouring Rwanda and the eastern DRC, saying it would be a safer, faster and more effective route than from Kinshasa, on the other side of the vast nation.

In recent years, the WFP had received up to $600m in funding. In 2024, it received about $380m.

UN agencies, including the WFP, have been hit by major cuts in US foreign aid, as well as other major European donors reducing overseas aid budgets to increase defence spending.

America’s longest government shutdown is becoming more painful by the day.

At least 40 million Americans are struggling to get food, more than a million federal workers haven’t been paid, health insurance premiums are rising, and flights are getting disrupted.

Congress has been locked in a standoff over a bill to fund government services, with Democrats demanding tax credits that will make health insurance cheaper for millions of Americans and an end to federal agency cuts.

Democrats won decisive victories in state and local elections this week. President Donald Trump is blaming the shutdown for this setback to the Republican Party.

So, will he now be willing to negotiate? Can the two sides agree to a comprise?

Presenter: Bernard Smith

Guests:

Mark Pfeifle – Republican strategist

Jeremy Mayer – Professor of political science at George Mason University

David Bolger – Democratic strategist

Aid agencies are in “a race against time” to get food and other humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip, a United Nations official has warned, as Israeli restrictions continue to impede deliveries across the bombarded enclave.

Speaking during a news briefing on Tuesday, a senior spokesperson for the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) noted that aid deliveries have increased since a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect last month.

But only two crossings into Gaza are open, which “severely limits the quantity of aid” that the WFP and other agencies can bring in, said Abeer Etefa.

“We need full access. We need everything to be moving fast. We are in a race against time. The winter months are coming. People are still suffering from hunger, and the needs are overwhelming,” she said.

WFP, which currently operates 44 food distribution points across Gaza, said it has provided food parcels to more than one million Palestinians in the territory since the ceasefire began on October 10.

But Etefa told reporters that the amount of food getting into Gaza remains insufficient, and reaching northern Gaza, where the world’s top hunger monitor confirmed famine conditions in August, remains a challenge.

“A major obstacle is the continued closure of the northern crossings into the Gaza Strip. Aid convoys are obliged to follow a slow, difficult route from the south,” she said.

“To deliver at scale, WFP needs all crossings to be open, especially those in the north. Full access to key roads across Gaza is also critical to allow food to be transported quickly and efficiently to where it is needed.”

Thousands of Palestinians have returned to their homes in Gaza’s north in recent weeks as the Israeli army withdrew to the so-called “yellow line” as part of the ceasefire agreement.

But most found their homes and neighbourhoods completely destroyed as a result of Israel’s two-year bombardment. Many families remain displaced and have been forced to live in tents and other makeshift shelters.

Khalid al-Dahdouh, a Palestinian father of five, returned to Gaza City to find his house in ruins. He has since built his family a small shelter, using bricks salvaged from the rubble and held together with mud.

“We tried to rebuild because winter is coming,” he told Al Jazeera.

“We don’t have tents or anything else, so we built a primitive structure out of mud since there is no cement … It protects us from the cold, insects and rain – unlike the tents.”

The UN and other aid agencies have been urging Israel to allow more supplies into the Strip, as outlined in the ceasefire agreement, particularly as Palestinians are set to face harsh conditions during the colder winter months.

On Saturday, Gaza’s Government Media Office said that 3,203 commercial and aid trucks brought supplies into Gaza between October 10 and 31, an average of 145 aid trucks per day, or just 24 percent of the 600 trucks that are meant to be entering daily as part of the deal.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army has continued to carry out attacks on Gaza, as well as demolishing homes and other structures.

One person was killed and another wounded on Tuesday after an Israeli quadcopter opened fire in the Tuffah neighbourhood east of Gaza City. A source at al-Ahli Arab Hospital also told Al Jazeera that a person was killed by Israeli army fire in northern Gaza’s Jabalia.

At least 240 Palestinians have been killed and 607 others wounded in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire came into effect, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

Israeli leaders have rejected criticism of those attacks and of continued restrictions on humanitarian aid, accusing Hamas of breaching the deal by not releasing all the bodies of deceased Israeli captives from the territory.

On Tuesday, Israel said it received the remains of an Israeli captive after Hamas handed them over to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

There is no end in sight to the United States government shutdown.

At least 1.4 million workers are going without pay, while some people on federal aid are worrying about how they will get their next meal.

How can the standoff between Republicans and Democrats be resolved, and what will happen if it goes on?

Presenter: 

Adrian Finighan

Guests: 

Marena Lin – Co-founder of Project Restore Us, a volunteer-led organisation that supports communities facing food insecurity in Los Angeles

Niall Stanage – White House columnist for The Hill newspaper and digital media company in Washington, DC

Chris Tilly – Economist and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles

Michaela Thompson, an unemployed mother in the San Fernando Valley, relies on federal assistance to afford the specialized baby formula her 15-month-old daughter needs because of a feeding disorder. At $47 for a five-day supply, it’s out of her reach otherwise.

But with the federal shutdown blocking upcoming disbursements of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits — previously known as food stamps — Thompson said she doesn’t know how she’s going to fill her daughter’s bottles.

“It feels like the world is kind of crumbling right now,” she said. “I’m terrified for my family and my daughter.”

Millions of low-income families who rely on SNAP benefits to put food on the table in California and across the country — about 1 in 8 Americans — are confronting similar fears this week, as federal and state officials warn that November funds will not be issued without a resolution to the ongoing federal shutdown and Congress shows no sign of a breakthrough.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced Tuesday that California is joining other Democrat-led states in suing the Trump administration to force SNAP payments through the use of contingency funds, but the litigation — even if successful — won’t prevent all the disruptions.

Army Spc. Jazmine Contreras, center, and Pfc. Vivian Almaraz, right, of the 40th Division Sustainment Brigade, Army National Guard, Los Alamitos, help workers and volunteers pack boxes of produce at the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank on Friday.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

It is already too late for some of the 5.5 million California residents — including 2 million children — who rely on such benefits to receive them in time to buy groceries after Friday, when many will have already used up their October benefits, state officials said. Advocates warned of a tidal wave of need as home pantries and CalFresh cards run empty — which they said is no longer a risk but a certainty.

“We are past the point at which it is possible to prevent harm,” said Andrew Cheyne, managing director of public policy at the organization End Child Poverty California.

About 41.7 million Americans were served through SNAP per month in fiscal 2024, at an annual cost of nearly $100 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

State officials, local governments and nonprofit organizations are scrambling to get the word out to families and to redirect millions of dollars in emergency funding to stock more food at local food banks or load gift cards for the neediest families, but many say the capacity to respond is insufficient — and are bracing for a deluge of need.

“People really don’t understand the scale and scope of what is happening and the ripple effect it will have on the economy and with people just meeting their basic needs,” said Angela F. Williams, president and chief executive of United Way.

Already, United Way is seeing an uptick in calls to its 211 centers nationwide from people looking for help with groceries, utility bills and rent, Williams said. “There’s a critical crisis that has been brewing for a while, and it’s reaching a fevered pitch.”

Cheyne said many families are well aware of the looming disruption to aid and scrambling to prepare, including by going to state food banks for groceries. Newsom has activated the National Guard to help handle that influx in California.

However, Cheyne said many others will likely find out about the disruption while standing in grocery store checkouts.

“We anticipate a huge surge in people extremely upset to find out that they’ve literally shopped, and the groceries are in their cart, and their kids are probably with them, and then they get to the checkout, and then it’s, ‘transaction denied: insufficient funds.’”

Children and older people — who make up more than 63% of SNAP recipients in California — going hungry across America is a dire enough political spectacle that politicians of both parties have worked aggressively to prevent it in the past, including during previous government shutdowns. But this time around, they seem resigned to that outcome.

Members of the military and their families receive food donated by Feeding San Diego food bank on Friday.

(Sandy Huffaker / AFP / Getty Images)

Republicans and Democrats have been unable to reach a deal on the budget impasse as Democrats fight Republicans over their decision to slash healthcare subsidies relied on by millions of Americans. With no end in sight to the nearly month-long shutdown, federal workers who are either furloughed or working without pay — including many in California — are facing financial strain and increasingly showing up at food pantries, officials said.

A deluge of SNAP recipients will only add to the lines, and some food bank leaders are becoming increasingly worried about security at those facilities if they are overwhelmed by need.

Pointing fingers

In a statement posted to its website Monday, the Department of Agriculture wrote that Senate Democrats had repeatedly voted not to restore the SNAP funds by passing a short-term Republican spending measure.

“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” it said. “We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats.”

The Trump administration had said Friday that it cannot legally dip into contingency funds to continue funding SNAP into November, even as it uses nontraditional means to pay for the salaries of active-duty military and federal law enforcement.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) walks through Statuary Hall at the Capitol on Tuesday.

(Samuel Corum / Bloomberg / Getty Images)

The administration has used tariff revenue to temporarily fund the Women, Infants and Children Nutrition Program, which serves about 6.7 million women and children nationally, though it is unclear how long it will continue do so. The California Department of Public Health said the state WIC program, which supports about half of all babies born in California, should “remain fully operational through Nov. 30, assuming no unexpected changes.”

On Capitol Hill, negotiations to end the shutdown have mostly ground to a halt. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) once again refused to call House members back into session this week, sparking criticism from Democrats and some Republicans who want to negotiate a deal to reopen the government. In the Senate, negotiations remain at a stalemate.

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, have relentlessly blamed President Trump and his administration for causing the disruption to food aid, just as they have blamed the president for the shutdown overall.

“Donald Trump has the power to ensure 40 million people don’t go hungry during the shutdown. But he wishes to inflict the maximum pain on those who can least afford it. He won’t fund food. But he’s happy to build a golden ballroom,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) wrote Monday on X.

Schiff was referring to a $250-million ballroom Trump has planned for the White House, which he recently set into motion by demolishing the historic East Wing.

A member of the U.S. Navy waits in line to receive food from volunteers with Feeding San Diego food bank.

(Sandy Huffanker / AFP / Getty Images)

State and local responses

States have responded to the looming cut in different ways. Some have promised to backfill SNAP funding from their own coffers, though federal officials have warned they will not be reimbursed.

Newsom has stood up the National Guard and directed tens of millions of dollars to state food banks, but has made no promises to directly supplement missing SNAP benefits with state dollars — despite advocacy groups calling on him to do so.

On Friday, dozens of organizations wrote a letter to Newsom and other state officials estimating the total amount of lapsed funding for November to be about $1.1 billion, and calling on them to use state funds to cover the total amount to prevent “a crisis of unthinkable magnitude.”

Carlos Marquez III, executive director of the County Welfare Directors Assn. of California, said counties and other local agencies are responding in a number of ways, including making contributions to local food banks and looking for ways to redirect local funds — and find matching philanthropic dollars — to directly backfill missing SNAP benefits.

Los Angeles County, which has about 1.5 million SNAP recipients, has already approved a $10-million expenditure to support local food banks, its Department of Children and Family Services has identified an additional $2 million to redirect, and its partners providing managed care plans to SNAP recipients have committed another $5 million, he said.

He said his group has advocated for Newsom to declare a statewide emergency, which would help equalize the response statewide and allow for mutual aid agreements between wealthier and poorer areas.

He said his group also is advocating for the state to begin using school lunch programs to direct additional food to families with younger children at home, and to work with local senior care facilities to make sure elderly SNAP recipients are also being helped.

What comes next?

Williams, of United Way, said the organization’s local chapters are “looking for partners on the ground” to provide additional support moving forward, as needs will persist.

“It seems like every day the needs just become more and more pressing, and I’m concerned, honestly, not only about the economic toll that is being taken on individuals, I’m concerned about the mental health and emotional toll this is taking on people,” Williams said. “My hope is that people from all sectors will step up and say, ‘How can we be good neighbors?’”

On Friday, National Guard troops began a 30-day deployment at the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, where they are sorting produce and packing food boxes. Due to “heightened concern” in the community about the military’s role in Trump’s immigration crackdown, the troops will be working in warehouses and not interacting directly with the public, said Chief Executive Michael Flood.

Flood said there has already been a surge in demand from laid-off federal workers in Los Angeles, but he’s expecting demand to increase markedly beginning Saturday, and building up distribution capacity similar to what was in place during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — which seemed odd, considering “this is a man-made disaster.”

“It doesn’t have to happen,” Flood said. “Folks in D.C. can prevent this from happening.”

Footage shows Israeli protesters blocking aid trucks at the Kerem Shalom crossing. They say Hamas broke ceasefire terms. WHO warns deliveries remain only a “fraction of what’s needed” and estimates $7 billion to rebuild Gaza’s shattered health system.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — A Cuban man deported by the United States to the African nation of Eswatini is on a hunger strike at a maximum-security prison, having been held there for more than three months without charge or access to legal counsel under the Trump administration’s third-country program, his U.S.-based lawyer said Wednesday.

Roberto Mosquera del Peral was one of five men sent to the small kingdom in southern Africa in mid-July as part of the U.S. deportation program to Africa. It has been criticized by rights groups and lawyers, who say deportees are being denied due process and exposed to rights abuses.

Mosquera’s lawyer, Alma David, said in a statement sent to the Associated Press that he had been on a hunger strike for a week, and there were serious concerns over his health.

“My client is arbitrarily detained, and now his life is on the line,” David said. “I urge the Eswatini Correctional Services to provide Mr. Mosquera’s family and me with an immediate update on his condition and to ensure that he is receiving adequate medical attention. I demand that Mr. Mosquera be permitted to meet with his lawyer in Eswatini.”

The Eswatini government said Mosquera was “fasting and praying because he was missing his family” and described it as “religious practices” that it wouldn’t interfere with, a characterization disputed by David. She said in response: “It is not a religious practice. It’s an act of desperation and protest.”

Mosquera was among a group of five men from Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Vietnam and Yemen deported to Eswatini, an absolute monarchy ruled by a king who is accused of clamping down on human rights. The Jamaican man was repatriated to his home country last month, but the others have been kept at the prison for more than three months, while an Eswatini-based lawyer has launched a case against the government demanding they be given access to legal counsel.

Civic groups in Eswatini have also taken authorities to court to challenge the legality of holding foreign nationals in prison without charge. Eswatini said that the men would be repatriated but could be held there for up to a year.

U.S. authorities say they want to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Eswatini under the same program.

The men sent to Eswatini were criminals convicted of serious offenses, including murder and rape, and were in the U.S. illegally, the Department of Homeland Security said. It said that Mosquera had been convicted of murder and other charges and was a gang member.

The men’s lawyers said they had all completed their criminal sentences in the U.S. and are now being held illegally in Eswatini.

Homeland Security has cast the third-country deportation program as a means to remove “illegal aliens” from American soil as part of President Trump’s immigration crackdown, saying they have a choice to self-deport or be sent to a country like Eswatini.

The Trump administration has sent deportees to at least three other African nations — South Sudan, Rwanda and Ghana — since July under largely secretive agreements. It also has an agreement with Uganda, though no deportations there have been announced.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said that it has seen documents that show that the U.S. is paying African nations millions of dollars to accept deportees. It said that the U.S. agreed to pay Eswatini $5.1 million to take up to 160 deportees and Rwanda $7.5 million to take up to 250 deportees.

Another 10 deportees were sent to Eswatini this month and are believed to be held at the same Matsapha Correctional Complex prison outside the administrative capital, Mbabane. Lawyers said that those men are from Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Cuba, Chad, Ethiopia and Congo.

Lawyers say the four men who arrived in Eswatini on a deportation flight in July haven’t been allowed to meet with an Eswatini lawyer representing them, and phone calls to their U.S.-based attorneys are monitored by prison guards. They have expressed concern that they know little about the conditions in which their clients are being held.

“I demand that Mr. Mosquera be permitted to meet with his lawyer in Eswatini,” David said in her statement. “The fact that my client has been driven to such drastic action highlights that he and the other 13 men must be released from prison. The governments of the United States and Eswatini must take responsibility for the real human consequences of their deal.”

Imray writes for the Associated Press. Nokukhanya Musi contributed to this report from Manzini, Eswatini.

Despite a ceasefire deal with Israel, Palestinians across the devastated Gaza Strip continue to go hungry as food supplies remain critically low and aid fails to reach those who need it most.

As per the ceasefire agreement, Israel was supposed to allow 600 humanitarian aid trucks into Gaza per day. However, Israel has since reduced the limit to 300 trucks per day, citing delays in retrieving bodies of Israeli captives buried under the rubble by Israeli attacks.

According to the UN2720 Monitoring and Tracking Dashboard, which monitors humanitarian aid being offloaded, collected, delivered and intercepted on its way into Gaza, from October 10-16, only 216 trucks have reached their intended destinations inside Gaza.

According to truck drivers, aid deliveries are facing significant delays, with Israeli inspections taking much longer than expected.

‘Palestinians want food’

While some food aid has trickled in over the past few days, medical equipment, therapeutic nutrition and medicines are still in extremely short supply, despite being desperately needed by the most impoverished, particularly malnourished children.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said some commercial trucks have entered Gaza over the past few days, but most Palestinians do not have the ability to buy any of the items they are bringing in as they have spent all of their savings in the past two years.

So far, what has arrived in the trucks includes “wheat, rice, sugar, oil, fuel and cooking gas”, she said.

While food distribution points are expected to open for parcels and other humanitarian aid, people in Gaza have yet to receive them. “Palestinians want food, they want shelter, they want medicine,” Khoudary said.

She added that even 600 trucks a day would be insufficient to meet the needs of Gaza’s entire population.

Food ‘is not a bargaining chip’

The UN humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, has urged Israel to open more border crossings for humanitarian aid.

“We need more crossings open and a genuine, practical, problem-solving approach to removing remaining obstacles. Throughout this crisis, we have insisted that withholding aid from civilians is not a bargaining chip. Facilitation of aid is a legal obligation,” Fletcher said.

Since the ceasefire began, 137 World Food Programme trucks have entered Gaza as of October 14, delivering supplies to bakeries and supporting nutrition and food distribution programmes.

With the ceasefire in effect, WFP is now scaling up.

🔹137 trucks have already entered #Gaza — supporting bakeries, nutrition, and food distributions.

🔹170,000+ MT of food ready to move, enough to feed 2M people.

The goal: flood Gaza with food, fast. The ceasefire must hold. pic.twitter.com/AjKBu8rap7

— World Food Programme (@WFP) October 14, 2025

Israeli authorities continue to block UNRWA

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) – the primary and largest organisation providing aid to Palestinians – has faced significant restrictions imposed by Israel.

The agency, which was responsible for delivering food, medical care, education and emergency assistance, says it has enough food aid in warehouses in Jordan and Egypt to supply the people in Gaza for three months.

This includes food parcels for 1.1 million people and flour for 2.1 million, and shelter supplies sufficient for up to 1.3 million individuals.

However, despite the ceasefire, Israeli authorities are continuing to block them from entering.

UNRWA has enough food outside #Gaza to supply people there for three months, amid desperate need. Our teams stand ready to deliver it.

But despite the #ceasefire, the Israeli Authorities’ block on UNRWA bringing any supplies into Gaza still continues after over 7 months.

Let us… pic.twitter.com/O3fwK70d5V

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) October 16, 2025

Malnutrition among children

As of October 12, at least 463 people, including 157 children, have died from starvation amid Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. Nearly one in four children suffers from severe acute malnutrition.

After prolonged starvation, food must be reintroduced carefully under medical supervision to avoid re-feeding syndrome, a potentially fatal condition in which sudden intake of nutrients causes dangerous shifts in electrolytes, affecting the heart, nerves and muscles. A larger supply of nutritional aid, given safely, could dramatically save lives.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 90 percent of children in Gaza less than two years of age consume fewer than two food groups each day, which doesn’t include protein-rich foods.

At least 290,000 children between the ages of six months and 5 years, and 150,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women require feeding and micronutrient supplies.

In addition to this, there are an estimated 132,000 cases of children less than the age of five, and 55,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women projected to be suffering from acute malnutrition by June 2026, if immediate food aid isn’t made available.

Hunger is neither a natural condition of humankind nor an unavoidable tragedy: it is the result of choices made by governments and economic systems that have chosen to turn a blind eye to inequalities – or even of promoting them.

The same global order that denies 673 million people access to adequate food also enables a privileged group of just 3,000 billionaires to hold 14.6 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP).

In 2024, the wealthiest nations helped drive the largest surge in military spending since the end of the Cold War, reaching $2.7 trillion that year. Yet they failed to deliver on their own commitment: to invest 0.7 percent of their GDP in concrete actions to promote development in poorer countries.

Today, we see situations not unlike those that prevailed 80 years ago, when the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations was created. Unlike then, however, we are not only witnessing the tragedies of war and hunger feeding into each other, but also facing the urgent climate crisis. And the international order established to address the challenges of 1945 is no longer sufficient to address today’s problems.

Global governance mechanisms must be reformed. We need to strengthen multilateralism, create investment flows that promote sustainable development, and ensure that states have the capacity to implement consistent public policies to fight hunger and poverty.

It is essential to include the poor in public budgets and the wealthy in the tax base. This requires tax justice and taxing the superrich, an issue we managed to include for the first time in the final declaration of the G20 Summit, held in November 2024, under Brazil’s Presidency. A symbolic but historic change.

We advocate for this practice around the world — and we are implementing it in Brazil. Our Parliament is about to approve substantial tax reform: for the first time in the country, there will be a minimum tax on the income of the wealthiest individuals, exempting millions of lower-income earners from paying income tax.

During our G20 Presidency, Brazil also proposed the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty. Although recent, the initiative already has 200 members — 103 countries and 97 partner foundations and organisations. This initiative is not just about exchanging experiences, but about mobilising resources and securing commitments.

With this alliance, we want to enable countries to implement public policies that truly reduce inequality and ensure the right to adequate food. Policies that deliver rapid results, as seen in Brazil after we made the fight against hunger a government priority in 2023.

Official data released just a few days ago show that we have lifted 26.5 million Brazilians out of hunger since the beginning of 2023. In addition, Brazil has been removed, for the second time, from the FAO’s Hunger Map, as laid out in its global report on food insecurity. A map we would not have returned to if the policies launched during my first two terms (2003-10) and President Dilma Rousseff’s (2011-16) had not been abandoned.

Behind these achievements lie a set of coordinated actions on multiple fronts. We have strengthened and expanded our national income transfer programme, which now reaches 20 million households and supports 8.5 million children aged six and below.

We have increased funding for free meals in public schools, benefitting 40 million students. Through public food procurement, we have secured income for small-scale family farmers, while offering free, nutritious meals to those who truly need them. In addition, we have expanded the free supply of cooking gas and electricity to low-income households, freeing up room in family budgets to strengthen food security.

None of these policies, however, is sustainable without an economic environment that drives them. When there are jobs and income, hunger loses its grip. That is why we have adopted an economic policy that prioritises wage increases, leading to the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded in Brazil. And to the lowest level of per capita household income inequality.

Brazil still has a long way to go before achieving full food security for its entire population, but the results confirm that state action can indeed overcome the scourge of hunger. These initiatives, however, depend on concrete shifts in global priorities: investing in development rather than in wars; prioritising the fight against inequality instead of restrictive economic policies that for decades have caused massive concentration of wealth; and facing the challenge of climate change with people at its core.

By hosting COP30 in the Amazon next month, Brazil wants to show that the fight against climate change and the fight against hunger must go hand in hand. In Belem, we aim to adopt a Declaration on Hunger, Poverty, and Climate that acknowledges the profoundly unequal impacts of climate change and its role in worsening hunger in certain regions of the world.

I will also take these messages to the World Food Forum and to the meeting of the Council of Champions of the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty, events I will have the honour of attending today, the 13th, in Rome, Italy. These are messages that show that change is urgent and possible. For humanity, which created the poison of hunger against itself, is also capable of producing its antidote.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Half of the population is projected to experience critical food shortages by mid-2026 as armed groups block aid.

More than half of Haiti’s population is experiencing critical levels of hunger as armed groups tighten their grip across the Caribbean nation and the ravaged economy continues its downward spiral.

A report released on Friday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) found that some 5.7 million Haitians – of a population of roughly 11 million – are facing severe food shortages. The crisis threatens to worsen as gang violence displaces families, destroys agricultural production, and prevents aid from reaching those desperately in need.

The assessment shows 1.9 million people are already at emergency hunger levels, marked by severe food gaps and dangerous rates of malnutrition. Another 3.8 million face crisis-level food insecurity.

The situation is expected to deteriorate further, with nearly six million people projected to face acute hunger by mid-2026 as Haiti enters its lean agricultural season.

Haiti’s government announced plans on Friday to establish a Food and Nutrition Security Office to coordinate relief efforts. Louis Gerald Gilles, a member of the transitional presidential council, said authorities would mobilise resources quickly to reach those most affected.

But the response faces enormous obstacles. Armed groups now control an estimated 90 percent of Port-au-Prince, the capital, and have expanded into agricultural regions in recent months.

Violence has forced 1.3 million people from their homes – a 24 percent increase since December – with many sheltering in overcrowded temporary sites lacking basic services.

Farmers who remain on their land must negotiate with gangs for access and surrender portions of their harvests. Small businesses have shuttered, eliminating income sources for countless families. Even when crops reach normal yields, produce cannot reach Port-au-Prince because gangs block the main roads.

The economic devastation compounds the crisis. Haiti has recorded six consecutive years of recession, while food prices jumped 33 percent last July compared with the previous year.

The deepening emergency affects children with particular severity. A separate report this week found 680,000 children displaced by violence – nearly double previous figures – with more than 1,000 schools forced to close and hundreds of minors recruited by armed groups.

The international community authorised a new 5,550-member “gang suppression force” at the United Nations earlier this month, replacing a smaller mission that struggled with funding shortages.

But the security situation remains volatile. On Thursday, heavy gunfire erupted when government officials attempted to meet at the National Palace in downtown Port-au-Prince, forcing a hasty evacuation from an area long controlled by gangs.

Martine Villeneuve, Haiti director at Action Against Hunger, warned that while some improvements have been made, progress remains fragile without long-term investment to address the crisis’s root causes.