Famine is “imminent” in northern Gaza, the World Food Programme has warned. Aid agencies report they have been unable to deliver supplies there since January 23rd, as Israel continues its five-month genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza strip.
Since the beginning of the Israeli genocide in the strip, Gazans have been experiencing huge shortages of food and water. Israel dictates what is allowed to pass Gaza’s border crossings, and they only allow a few aid trucks into the strip. Unfortunately, the quantity and quality of the aid allowed in is not sufficient at all and does not cover Gazan citizens’ needs.
One in four households in Gaza, which constitutes more than half a million people, are facing catastrophic hunger conditions according to the World Food Programme.
“If the conflict doesn’t end now, children’s nutrition will continue to plummet, leading to preventable deaths or health issues which will affect the children of Gaza for the rest of their lives and have intergenerational consequences,” said UNICEF’s deputy executive director for humanitarian action and supply operations, Ted Chaiban.
In the north of the Gaza strip, most people consume one meal a day, if that. “We’ve started doing strange things to stay alive,” says Sobhi Abo Warda, a 20-year-old from Gaza City. Even though it is extremely risky, he and his family refused to be displaced to the south, unlike most of the citizens in the north who were forcibly evacuated.
“We thought it was going to be a few days or weeks and the Israeli attack(war) would be over. We experienced 5 intense Israeli attacks(wars) on Gaza. The longest was almost 2 months. We thought to ourselves that the recent attack would be a maximum of 3 months as the worst scenario. We didn’t think it was necessary to leave Gaza City, especially knowing that if we left, we would be living in tents since we don’t have relatives in the south. Also, if we left, we might never be able to go back, just like our grandparents were dismissed from the land and never went back to their villages after 1948. We didn’t want that to happen once again. We preferred staying in our house under harsh bombing rather than leaving to the south, living in tents in even much more extreme dire conditions and still experiencing bombing. It felt wiser to stay in Gaza City in the north,” Sobi added.
A few days after the one-week-truce, Israel started bombing trucks heading to Gaza city in the north as a way to pressure residents there to leave and empty the city. They also air dropped leaflets to Palestinians in Gaza city ordering them to leave to head south with threatening and insulting statements. Most Gaza City residents escaped to the north and headed south, especially when Israeli soldiers reached the north on the ground. Many Palestinians in the north never visited the south and have no relatives there at all. Most of them who reached the south are now living in tents.
Ever since, Palestinians who refused to leave the north have realized that the food and water situation will only get worse as Israel bombs trucks heading to the north.
“When the situation escalated and Israeli tanks reached everywhere in Gaza City, we literally forgot about the food. All we were thinking of was how to escape the tanks from one suburb to another without being seen or caught by Israeli soldiers. We tried our best to stay alive without leaving Gaza City,” Sobhi told Stated.
Since November 30th, residents of the north have gotten stuck there, and they were not allowed into the south. Israel separated the north from the south and started their ground military operations in Khan Younis in the south.
After 100 days since the beginning of the attack, Sobhi’s family had to confront severe shortages of food and water. It became less intense in Gaza City as Israeli soldiers redirected toward Khan Younis. There was still bombing in the north, but the situation in Khan Younis became the worst. This was seen as an opportunity for residents of the north to check out their markets and see if there is anything left to eat.
“We were shocked that the markets that once were considered the most vibrant and active in the strip before the attack are now empty and dirty, with their infrastructure totally destroyed. Dirty water can be seen everywhere. The only thing we could find was rice. My family spent a month only eating one meal of rice daily, sometimes boiled, other times fried. We tried to be as creative as possible so we don’t get bored. After that month, rice became so hard to get, there was very little available and it was very expensive. At this moment, we realized that we are experiencing true and severe starvation. Imagine we didn’t eat any tomatoes, cucumbers, pepper or potatoes for 145 days. These vegetables used to be found everywhere in our city before the attack,” Sobhi continued.
Since the middle of January until now, residents who remained in Gaza started to eat animal and bird feed due to starvation.
“If we find anything to be an alternative to the flour to make bread, we use it — the animal food (animal feed), the birds’ food (bird feed), and many strange things.” Each material makes a different shape and taste of bread.
“Each one is worse than the next,” says Sobhi Abu Warda.
"If the bread doesn’t look appetizing “we don’t say, ‘we’ll not eat it.’ No, we eat it. It's not good, but we have no choice,” he added.
Amidst this extremely tragic situation, if some aid was allowed entry into Gaza City by Israel, people would try to steal anything possible from the trucks so they can eat whatever they can get. Some people in the north started eating animal feed. Others had to eat their actual animals, such as horses, even though Palestinians have never in history slaughtered their horses and eaten them. They normally eat beef, chicken and fish but never horses’ meat!
Nowadays you can barely find any edible products in the north, and if you find them they’ll likely be either green leaves growing in the streets or tomato paste. You may be lucky and find some flour, but its price is way too high. A kilogram of flour would be sold for at least $50(USD) and the prices fluctuate, continuing to rise rapidly every day. A 25 kilogram bag of flour could be sold for $1250, and for a city like Gaza, where most of its citizens experienced poverty even before the attack, this price is shockingly unreasonable.
“A few days ago, a cart of onions was allowed into Gaza City and as tragic as it might seem, people purchased a kilo of onions for $25 and ate it as soon as they got their hands on it. They tried to shut down their stomachs for a little bit. My family once poured some water and added tomato paste to it, and we ate that gracefully as if it was a good lunch. I once purchased a tomato for $4. Yes, we’ve reached that level,” Sobhi wrote to us via WhatsApp.
We prepared a list of products you might be able to find if you wandered through the Gaza City markets, the prices here are at least 4 times higher than before the war.
Flour | 200 shekels ($56) per kilo |
Flour made with animal/bird feed | 150-200 shekels ($42-$56) per pound |
Rice | 80 Shekels ($22.50) per kilo |
Milk | 10 Shekels ($2.81) per litre |
Cheese | 30 Shekels ($8.50) per kilo |
Mushroom Cans | 15 Shekels ($4.22) per can |
Tomato Paste Cans | 10 Shekels ($2.81) per can |
Unfortunately, several people in Gaza have already died of hunger, not bombs. Hunger itself is a different harsh attack. Many people lose weight, people cannot think about their health at all. All they’re thinking of is how to quiet stomachs that scream of hunger, and how to deal with their hungry children.
“Being killed by shelling and airstrikes is much better than being killed by starvation. Because with starvation we die every moment, every second, but if we’re killed by the airstrikes, it’s a second and we’ll be dead,” Sobhi recounted.
In the south, however, the situation is a little bit better than in the north, yet it’s still miserable. There is more diversity in the products available, yet most of them are canned food and all come from aid allowed into Rafah across the border with Egypt under Israeli supervision. You can find flour, macaroni and rice at very high prices, yet less expensive than items in the north, as they are relatively more available.
The amount of aid allowed into the south is extremely insufficient. This comes at a time where the UN’s efforts, through UNRWA, are being defunded by several western countries such as the US, Australia, Britain, Finland, Germany and Italy.
Just like the north, the southern Gazans have no electricity at all, except for solar energy. Most houses in the strip have no light during the night, and they have to charge their phones and laptops from houses provided with solar energy during the day. And if the weather is cold and there is not much sun, solar energy cuts out.
Electricity shortages significantly affect the food situation. People have turned to Palestinian old traditional baking ways such as Taboon, which is a tabun portable clay oven shaped like a truncated cone. It is made with a top opening, which can be used as a small stove top, some were made with an opening at the bottom from which to stoke the fire. They also turn electronic baking machines into ones where heat is generated by fire made by coal without any need for electricity. This has made the price for pieces of wood and coal in the strip skyrocket. Imagine that the price of gas in the strip is less than wood and coal! Yet, both are at least multiple times their prices before the war.
Even though the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, France, and the United States have been airdropping aid to the southern areas of Gaza in coordination with the Israeli Occupation Forces, citizens said a lot of the aid fell in the sea and they couldn’t grab it. Many believe that this was a cunning manipulation on Israel’s part to show the world that Israel has “good intentions” when it comes to allowing aid trucks into Gaza, although they’ve claimed it isn’t easy because “they want to protect Palestinians in Gaza from Hamas.” In fact, they are clearly causing innocent children and civilians to die of hunger, aside from the thousands of innocent killed by their airstrikes and their unmerciful rockets.