The availability of food in the Gaza Strip has very slightly improved, though the risk of famine in the besieged territory remains, AFP reports quoting the World Health Organisation (WHO).

“The food situation has a little bit improved. There’s a bit more food,” Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO representative in the Palestinian territories, told a press briefing in Geneva via video link from Jerusalem.

Compared to a few months ago, “definitely there is more basic food, more wheat, but also a little bit more diversified food on the market. Not just in the south — also in the north”, where people have been surviving on the equivalent calories of less than a can of beans a day.

Ahmed Dahir, the WHO’s Gaza sub-office team lead, said that previously, “thousands” of people had been rushing at WHO trucks heading to northern Gaza — which has been most at risk of famine — in the hope of finding food.

“It has changed in the last few weeks. Now there is more food coming, and going to the north,” he said, speaking from the Gaza Strip.

Dahir said the food situation remained “fragile” in Gaza, while the population also lacked the cash to pay for food in the markets. “Access to food now has to be sustained,” he said.