October saw an “unprecedented” rise in the cost of water and wheat flour as Palestinians flocked to markets on the second day of the truce.
Food prices soared in Gaza last month, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said, amid Israeli bombing of the enclave and a stifling siege.
The office on Saturday called October’s increase “unprecedented,” at a time when Palestinians are enjoying some respite from fighting to stock up on essential items on the second day of a 2015 truce agreement. four days which includes the release of some of the Israeli captives held by Hamas in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.
Thousands of people gathered around stalls and shops in the Nuseirat market in the central Gaza Strip, seeking to obtain much-needed food supplies. Across the Gaza Strip, people lined up to buy wheat and other basic necessities.
The bureau said prices of food and beverages increased by 10 percent in October, while vegetables and wheat flour saw increases of 32 and 65 percent, respectively. The price of water has increased by 100 percent.
Israel had suspended aid deliveries to the enclave after the conflict erupted on October 7 and restricted fuel supplies, with even bakeries becoming idle due to lack of wheat flour, water and fuel. The United Nations and humanitarian organizations have long warned of the “immediate possibility of famine” and the spread of disease.
The UN said the truce between Israel and Hamas allowed it to increase the delivery of food, water and medicine to the highest volume since humanitarian aid convoys to Gaza resumed on October 21.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) announced on Saturday that it had delivered a convoy of 61 trucks carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza City and northern Gaza, whose residents were ordered to evacuate from the from the Israeli army.
The UN said earlier this month that people remaining in the north were resorting to “negative coping mechanisms due to food shortages, including skipping or reducing meals and using unsafe and unhealthy for making a fire.
The PRCS said Saturday’s delivery was the largest since the start of the war. The trucks were “loaded with food and non-food items, water, primary health care drugs and emergency medical supplies”, X reported.
🔴 The largest convoy of 61 humanitarian aid trucks in #Gaza and northern governorates loaded with food and non-food items, water, primary health care drugs and emergency medical supplies, from the aid entered today through Rafah as well as PRCS warehouses in THE… pic.twitter.com/NMrQqiYo2R
– PRCS (@PalestineRCS) November 25, 2023
As part of the four-day agreement between Hamas and Israel, 137 humanitarian trucks entered Gaza on Friday, with the pause in hostilities.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said 129,000 liters (34,000 gallons) of fuel entered Gaza, along with four trucks carrying cooking gas for the first time since October 7.
However, aid agencies say much more is needed to help the 2.3 million people living in the besieged enclave, describing conditions on the ground as “catastrophic”.
More than 1.7 million people have now been forcibly displaced in the Gaza Strip, many of whom have taken refuge in UN schools, which are severely overcrowded.
According to the UN, 2.2 million people need food aid to survive.
More than 44,000 cases of diarrhea and 70,000 cases of respiratory infections have been reported.