The Weeknd has promised $2 million to feed families in Gaza, where Palestinians are being subjected to near-famine conditions.
In a Monday news release, the United Nations World Food Programme announced that the artist’s donation would cover the equivalent of 1,500 metric tons of fortified wheat flour, enough to make over 18 million loaves of bread and feed more than 157,000 Palestinians in one month.
“With famine looming in Gaza, [The Weeknd’s] generous support will provide vital relief for thousands of Palestinian families who battle the grip of hunger every day,” Corinne Fleischer, the World Food Programme’s director for the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe Region, said in a statement.
“We are tremendously grateful for his contribution, compassion, and for his unwavering advocacy for WFP and the people of Palestine.”
The Weeknd, who now goes by his given name, Abel Tesfaye, was appointed a United Nations World Food Programme goodwill ambassador in 2021 and previously donated $2.5 million for emergency food aid in Gaza.
That December 2023 donation was able to provide 820 metric tons of food parcels to Palestinians, feeding more than 173,000 people for two weeks.
Last week, the UN reported that hunger is reaching catastrophic levels in Gaza, which has been under six-plus months of bombardment from Israel, in retaliation for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks that killed 1,200 people and saw the capture of 250 more.
“People cannot meet even the most basic food needs,” said World Food Programme’s Geneva office director, Gian Carlo Cirri. “They have exhausted all coping strategies, like eating animal fodder, begging, selling off their belongings to buy food. They are most of the time destitute and clearly some of them are dying of hunger.”
In a report last month, experts who assess global food insecurity said all of Gaza’s 2.2 million population is in some state of hunger crisis, emergency or outright famine.
The report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification committee called conditions “the highest share of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity that the IPC initiative has ever classified for any given area or country.”