GAZA: The World Food Prog­ramme (WFP) will suspend food aid to over 200,000 Palestinians from next month due to a “severe” shortage of funds, the group’s senior official for the Palestinian territories said on Sunday.

“In light of the severe funding shortages, WFP is forced to make painful choices to stretch the limited resources,” Samer Abdeljaber, the WFP’s country director, said. “WFP would have to start suspending assistance to over 200,000 people, which is 60 per cent of its current case load, from June.” The most impacted families are in Gaza, where food insecurity and poverty are the highest, and in the West Bank.

The United Nations agency offers impoverished Palestinians both monthly vouchers with a value of $10.30 per person and food baskets. Both programmes will be affected.

Gaza, which has been run by the Hamas group since 2007, is home to 2.3 million people, of which 45pc are unemployed and 80pc depend on international aid, according to Palestinian and UN records.

“WFP understands the implications of this unavoidable and hard decision on hundreds of thousands of people who also depend on food assistance for their most basic needs,” said Abdeljaber.

Citing security concerns with the enclave’s Hamas rulers, Israel has led a blockade together with Egypt that has put restrictions on the movement of people and goods for years.

Chanting “No to Hunger” dozens of Palestinians staged a protest outside the WFP offices in Gaza City to protest the decision.

“The voucher is life, the message they sent us equals death since there is no other source of income,” said Faraj Al-Masri, a father of two, whose family gets vouchers worth $41.20 per month.

In Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, Jamalat El-Dabour, whose family receives $164.80 worth of vouchers per month, said they will “starve to death” as her husband was sick and unemployed.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces on Sunday demolished a Palestinian primary school in the occupied West Bank citing safety issues, drawing sharp criticism from the European Union which had funded the project.

Palestinians hurled rocks at Israeli forces who fired tear gas at them, as bulldozers moved in on the site at Jabbet al-Dhib village near Bethlehem.

The EU said it was “appalled” after Israeli forces arrived at dawn at the school site, which a Palestinian Authority official said served 45 students and consisted of five classrooms.

A caravan and classrooms constructed of tin sheeting were cleared out of their contents before the demolition.