Gaza- For months, the Palestinian Zeenat Al-Namrouti and her family have not tasted any fresh vegetables or meat, and obtaining bread has become an impossible task, as this fifty-year-old woman displaced from northern Gaza says at the Abdul Qader Al-Husseini School in the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.
This mother and grandmother – who supports a family of 15 people – was so hungry that she was forced to sell some of her personal and household belongings to provide money to meet their basic needs in light of the huge rise in the prices of flour and scarce goods available in the markets.
The severe restrictions imposed by the Israeli occupation authorities since the beginning of last October on the entry of humanitarian aid and commercial goods through the Kerem Shalom commercial crossing, southeast of Gaza, led to the depletion of everything from the markets and the rise in prices, and because of it, the famine “ravaged” the bodies of nearly two million Palestinians. And the displaced people in the south of the Gaza Strip.
Real famine
“By God, I lost half,” Al-Namrouti means that she lost a lot of weight due to famine, and she tells Al-Jazeera Net that she takes 10 pills of medicine daily for the heart, blood pressure, and diabetes, and the food necessary for her health condition is not available.
She adds that she and her family rely daily on food distributed free of charge by a charitable hospice, and says, “If there is a hospice we eat, and if there is nothing to eat, we spend our day hungry.”
The occupation restrictions imposed on the movement of humanitarian aid and commercial goods forced many charitable hospices to temporarily close due to the inability of those in charge of them to provide food preparation needs, especially as the need for them increased and they became the only refuge for the hungry.
Al-Namrouti says, “We are in a famine like the north,” and her words refute Israeli claims about “humanitarian and safe areas” to push those remaining in the northern Gaza Strip to flee toward its south.
For more than 4 months, Al-Namrouti says that she has not tasted the taste of tomatoes, and describes the prices of vegetables as crazy and unprecedented, and she asked angrily, “Who can buy a kilo of tomatoes for 50 shekels (about 13 dollars), and a kilo of onions for 45 shekels (about 12 dollars), and even seasonal plants – which… It has never witnessed an increase in its prices – it is no longer affordable for everyone, as the price of a kilo of Swiss chard costs 10 shekels (about two dollars). and a half), and a kilo of chickpeas costs 22 shekels (about 6 dollars).”
“By God, we cannot live. How long will we be able to bear it?” asks Al-Namrouti, who has been forced since three in the morning to stand in long lines in front of the only bakery in the city of Khan Yunis to get a single loaf of bread. In the process, she is pushed, pulled, and even beaten, and she falls to the ground. More than once.
Severe deficiency
This woman is not lucky every time to obtain a loaf of bread supported by international bodies and its price is 3 shekels (less than a dollar), and she cannot buy it from boys who resell it for 45 shekels.
The last time I received flour from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) was before the displacement from the city of Rafah following the Israeli ground invasion last May.
Due to the severe shortage of flour, 3 out of 8 UN-supported bakeries in the southern Gaza Strip have been operating at low capacity for weeks, and are threatened with closure within a few days due to the running out of fuel and flour as a result of Israeli restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid and crimes of robbery and theft by gangs of thieves.
According to UNRWA, “the delayed arrival of fuel and flour is exacerbating the crisis and leaving countless people without access to bread.”
Umm Mahmoud Abu Saada has a story of pain with her aunt, Umm Muhammad, who has been suffering from her wound not healing for a long time due to the lack of food that her health needs. She tells Tel Aviv Tribune Net, “The whole country does not have eggs. How will an old woman heal from her wounds without good (good) food?” ?
This woman (50 years old) is a mother of 8 people, and from time to time she is forced to displace them from the town of Bani Suhaila, which is close to the Israeli security fence in eastern Khan Yunis, and she struggles to provide a living for her young children.
Umm Mahmoud adds that the children do not know what siege and famine mean, and that she is trying to calm them down with water, tea, and some bread. She prepared the last “dough” from a 25-kilogram bag of flour that she bought for 170 shekels (about 46 dollars) about a week ago, and she does not know how she will manage anymore. That, and constantly repeating, “God is great and does not forget anyone.”
Famine spread
The price of a bag of flour has risen to more than $200 now and is not available in the markets, while its price was no more than $3 last September.
Umm Mahmoud explains, “In the past, we used to say we spent it on bread, tea, and snacks, but the simplest things are no longer available.” Tea has disappeared from the market, and the price of a kilo of sugar has risen from 5 shekels (about a dollar and a half) to 50 shekels (about 13 dollars).
Director of the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network, Amjad Shawa, relied on the scarce quantities of flour received in the Gaza Strip in the recent period, and estimated that the per capita share in Gaza is less than one loaf of bread per day.
Al-Shawa confirmed to Al-Jazeera Net that famine is spreading dangerously in the center and south of the Gaza Strip, explaining that since last September, no more than 20 to 30 aid trucks have entered the Gaza Strip, and at the present time there are also no commercial goods for the private sector in the markets, and the population depends entirely on Scarce aid.
Due to Israeli restrictions and the lack of flour, vegetables, and basic materials, a large number of bakeries and charitable hospices were forced to close, which exacerbated the humanitarian crisis and the spread of famine, according to the director of the National Network.
UNRWA says that without immediate intervention, the acute food shortage crisis is expected to worsen, putting the lives of more than two million Palestinians at risk as they depend on humanitarian aid to survive.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 80% of the areas in the Gaza Strip have become high-risk, as people are forced to flee in search of basic necessities, especially since safety does not exist.
“Across Gaza, the process of delivering what little aid is allowed in has become extremely complicated, including due to unsafe roads,” the office says.