Palestinians are facing a devastating and growing humanitarian crisis.

On 20 March, the Foreign Secretary announced the UK has funded WFP to provide 2000 tons of food aid, enough to feed 275,000 people in Gaza.

On 25 March, the Royal Air Force airdropped 10 tonnes of food aid - including water, rice and baby food - directly to civilians in Gaza.

We have trebled our aid commitment this financial year and we are doing everything we can to get more aid in as quickly as possible by land, sea and air.

We continue to call for an immediate pause to get aid in and hostages out, then progress towards a sustainable, permanent ceasefire, without a return to destruction, fighting and loss of life.

The UK is playing a leading role in Somalia to build strategic partnerships to channel additional funding for the famine response. On 21 September, the former Minister for Development announced a £22.8 million package of assistance for Somalia to alleviate the impact of drought and address the risk of famine, which included support for both UN and Non-Governmental Organisations delivering food, nutrition, health and water assistance for populations in Baidoa and Burkhaba in South West State. Linked to that announcement, on 21 November, the Minister for Development signed a new match funding arrangement with Saudi Arabia of £1.7 million to deliver emergency food assistance through the World Food Programme.

FCDO officials met South West State officials both bilaterally and together with other international humanitarian donors since the release of the latest famine risk assessment data in September. We continue to raise the importance of safe and principled humanitarian access.

The UK is extremely concerned about increased levels of food insecurity and risk of famine in Yemen, with thousands of people already in famine conditions and 13.5 million Yemeni people at risk of starving or struggling to get enough food to feed their families according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) data. We have been sounding the alarm on Yemen since September, when we announced an additional £30.8 million in UK aid specifically for famine prevention.

On 3 December, in response to the release of the IPC data, the Foreign Secretary announced an additional £14 million in UK aid to Yemen. This new funding will help 1.5 million households access food and medicines, and takes the UK's commitment to £214 million this financial year (2020/21). We continue to urge the international community to step up, including though urgently disbursing humanitarian funding, supporting the economy and encouraging the parties to engage in new peace talks led by UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths.

​The UK's view remains that there can be no military solution to the conflict and we fully support the UN Special Envoy for Yemen in facilitating a credible peace process. On 15 March, the UK proposed and coordinated a UN Security Council Presidential Statement which reiterated the Council's call on the parties to agree on the modalities for a durable cessation of hostilities.

We are extremely concerned at recent reports of the growing risk of famine to millions of Yemenis. The UK plays a leading role in combatting hunger in Yemen and on World Food Day (16 October) we announced a package of £96.5 million which will help UNICEF tackle malnutrition in Yemen over the coming three years.

On the 22 February the Secretary of State for International Development announced a £100 million package of assistance for South Sudan which will provide food for 500,000 and clean water for 300,000. We are encouraging other donors to step up their efforts to respond to the famine whilst calling on all sides involved in the conflict to bring an end to the fighting.