Gaza – After hours of waiting in a long line in front of the only bakery in the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, Muhammad carried the drink of sadness on his shoulders and returned to his family with empty palms, as he was not one of the lucky few who received a loaf of bread.
For the third day in a row, this forty-year-old father returns to his family in Al-Mawasi, west of the city, burdened with his worries and sorrows. He has failed to provide some loaves of bread for his six children. He tells Al-Jazeera Net, “For two weeks, we have not tasted the true taste of bread without an unpleasant smell.”
Shurrab and his family live on “leftover flour” in their last bag, which he says is “poisoned and not suitable for humans, but despite its bad smell, we are forced to sift it, knead it, bake it, and eat it with whatever food is available in a nearby charitable hospice to satisfy our hunger.”
The famine has intensified for more than two million Palestinians in the south and north of the Gaza Strip since the beginning of this October, as a result of the occupation closing the only Kerem Shalom commercial crossing in the Gaza Strip, and preventing the entry of humanitarian aid and commercial goods, in addition to the continued occupation of the Rafah land crossing since the invasion of the border city of Rafah. With Egypt on May 6th.
Bread lines
Muhammad Shurrab travels a long distance from his displacement tent in Al-Mawasi to the “Al-Qalaa Bakery” in the city center, every morning, hoping to get an advanced position in a long line, for a chance to obtain a loaf of bread enough for his family for just one day.
This bakery – the only one in the city of Khan Yunis, which is inhabited by approximately 1,200,000 residents and displaced people – is witnessing intense crowding of men, women and children, and problems and clashes erupt daily as a result of the intense stampede. Muhammad says, “It is one of the goals of the occupation, which uses hunger as a weapon with which it fights us.” To kill us and create internal strife.”
Sharab’s dependence on a charitable hospice that is still operating close to the displaced persons’ camp in which he resides has increased, while many hospices have been forced to stop working temporarily and urgently until the availability of materials and goods that have run out of markets as a result of the Israeli siege and closure of the crossings.
Days pass for his family when they only have one meal, which consists of “canned food,” which the hospice turns into “cooking” and distributes to displaced families, and it is often not enough for everyone, due to the intense need for food.
“We are living in a real famine,” says Sharab’s wife, who is unable to provide food and the daily needs of her children. She adds, “May God help the people of the north, as they have been in this state since the beginning of the war.”
About 1,800,000 residents and displaced people in the southern Gaza Strip share the pangs of hunger, and face the same famine that about 400,000 Gazans in Gaza City and the northern Gaza also suffer from.
Flour crunch
In light of this, the prices of flour, commodities, and scarce goods in the markets rose exorbitantly, which was unsuitable for the majority of Gazans who were devastated by the war and lost their sources of livelihood and savings.
Flour completely disappeared from the markets, after the price of a bag weighing 25 kilograms reached more than 250 shekels (about 67 dollars). Maryam Al-Masry told Al-Jazeera Net that her husband searched for a bag for two continuous days everywhere in the city of Khan Yunis and did not find it. She added, “If he found it at this price, we would not be able to buy it.”
Before the current closure of the Kerem Shalom commercial crossing, the price of this bag of flour was not more than 10 shekels (less than 3 dollars), but due to the closure and its failure to reach the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) to distribute it for free, the prices rose in this way. .
Al-Masry says that she and her family (5 members) live on “sandwiches,” which are about to run out of canned goods in the house, and she does not know how she will manage her affairs after that, unless the crossing is opened and flour, humanitarian aid, and goods are brought in.
Her husband had to buy a loaf of bread for 20 shekels ($5.4) from a boy who had been queuing with others in the bakery line since dawn, to buy the loaf of bread for 3 shekels and resell it.
This woman, who lost a number of her family members during the war, says, “The occupation is against us, and we also do not have mercy on each other, and the war merchants exploit our needs and raise prices. Everything in the country has risen in price except our souls and our lives.”
The flour crisis in the south of the Gaza Strip resulted in a profession in which young men and women work, standing on the sidewalks and street corners selling loaves of bread prepared by their mothers in shelter centers, at a price of one shekel per loaf, that is, more than double its price before the current crisis, and many complained about its taste due to the poor quality of the flour made from it. .
Starvation policy
For its part, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that the arrival of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip has faced major obstacles since the beginning of this month.
The Government Media Office places these obstacles within the framework of what it calls the “starvation policy” pursued by the occupation, and because of it, the majority of goods and merchandise disappeared from the markets in the south and north of the Gaza Strip, prices rose significantly, and the bread crisis took hold, which the Director General of the Office, Ismail Al-Thawabta, attributes to preventing the occupation. UNRWA flour trucks.
The same government official told Tel Aviv Tribune Net, “The occupation has prevented the entry of more than a quarter of a million trucks of aid and goods since the start of the genocidal war, as part of strengthening the policy of starvation and using it as a weapon of war against civilians.”
The situation has seriously worsened this month, as a result of the occupation completely closing all humanitarian crossings and outlets through which some humanitarian aid and goods were entering, according to Al-Thawabta.
According to UNRWA and other UN bodies, the current state of hunger as a result of Israeli restrictions and restrictions reminds us of what the reality of Gazans was like in the first two months of the war. UNRWA explains this by saying that “people are struggling in Deir al-Balah in order to obtain a loaf of bread, and everyone in The Gaza Strip is at risk of famine.
In a recent report, the UN agency says, “More than 1,800,000 people across the sector suffer from high levels of acute food insecurity, classified as crisis stage three or higher,” and notes that “acute malnutrition is ten times higher than “It was before the war.”