Italy launches the “Food for Gaza” initiative in partnership with the United Nations

Italy announced an initiative to coordinate humanitarian aid directed to the Gaza Strip, in partnership with the United Nations, and said that a coordination office would be established open to all parties wishing to contribute.

Italy announced on Monday the launch of the “Food for Gaza” initiative, in partnership with United Nations food-related organizations, to increase humanitarian aid to the Strip.

Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani met with the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization, Qu Dongyu, the Executive Director of the World Food Programme, Cindy McCain, and the Deputy Secretary-General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Javier Castellanos, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building in Rome.

After the Quartet meeting, Tajani said they would like to organize a meeting of the “Food for Gaza” initiative of the Italian government, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Program and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which aims to coordinate humanitarian aid to Gaza.

He added: "The goal is to launch an initiative that will enable us to make more efforts in response to the tragic humanitarian situation in Gaza."

He stated that they decided to establish a technical coordination office open to all actors who wish to contribute.

Tajani indicated that they will inform the G7 countries, members of the European Union, Israel, Palestine and Hamas through the Arab countries of their initiatives.

Referring to the aid being dropped from the air into Gaza, Tajani said: “There is a very large number of civilian deaths. We are trying to help the Palestinians. The aid being dropped from the air into Gaza is not enough, and it is necessary to increase the entry of trucks from the Rafah crossing. Today, a few "Dozens of trucks, but this is definitely not enough."

For his part, Qu Dongyu expressed his thanks to the Italian Minister for this initiative to achieve food security in Gaza.

“Today is the first day of Ramadan,” Zhou said. “We must do everything we can to help the civilian population of Gaza who are suffering but preparing to celebrate Ramadan.”

The devastating war waged by Israel on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, has resulted in tens of thousands of civilian casualties, most of them children and women, in addition to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe and massive infrastructure destruction.