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. 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 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 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.
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