Parents, Children, Black Markets: The Desperate Search For Food In Gaza
| Al Manassa
RAFAH — Under the raging fire of war, like so many others, Samha Ziara was forced to flee with her husband and their seven children from their home in Gaza City.
The family sheltered first in the western part of the city, but were then forced to flee again, this time southward, under Israel’s intense bombardment. They ended up sheltering in the urban Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.
“We left the house and left everything behind, except for the money we had available,” the 44-year-old mother told Al-Manassa.
They secured a tent and some necessities for a few days with the savings they had. When the money ran out, her husband, Awad Ziara, began to search around-the-clock for any source of income to feed his children whose age ranging from 18 months to 18 years old.
That search turned up empty, and amid the grinding war the humanitarian aid the family received didn’t come close to covering their needs. The tragedy of Ziara’s family is a mirror for hundreds of thousands like them who were removed from their homes and now shelter in displacement camps. They depend on humanitarian aid allowed by Israel into the besieged territory.
But increasingly, Al-Manassa has found, that some are either resorting to force to get aid to feed their children or turning to a new black market where merchants and war profiteers exploited people’s needs.
Looming famine
More than 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million population were forced out of their homes in the war. The international community’s authority on determining the severity of hunger crises, has warned that famine is imminent in northern Gaza, where 70% of people are experiencing catastrophic hunger.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification said in a report that virtually everyone in Gaza is struggling to get enough food, and that around 677,000 people are experiencing the highest level of catastrophic hunger.
Israel declared war on Oct. 7, after Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostage. More than 31,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 70,000 wounded in Israel’s war on Hamas since then,
according to Gaza’s health ministry. At the start of the war Israel sealed off Gaza, cutting off water, electricity and humanitarian aid. It was forced to allow a small amount of aid daily, after weeks of mounting international pressure. But the aid is not enough given the restrictions imposed by Israel on the strip’s crossings.
All aid must be screened by Israel at the Nitsana crossing before allowing its delivery through Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings.
With the escalation of the Israeli ground operation in Gaza, the occupation forces destroyed tons of food in stores, and bulldozed hundreds of agricultural areas and poultry and cow farms, causing the population to lose most of the available food resources, especially in the northern half of Gaza.
Many can’t access aid
Aid — though insufficient — has become the sole source of food for most of the displaced, amid imminent famine in northern Gaza which is sealed off by Israel’s military.
But many can’t access it. Incidents of violence have been reported as parents desperately seek food to feed their children. Meanwhile, facing what some see as unfair distribution policies by local authorities, locals have witnessed the emergence of a black market where merchants and war profiteers exploit people’s needs.
Maryam Arafa, a 51-year-old Palestinian woman, has been sheltering along with many displaced people in a tent camp close to the Rafah crossing since late December. Displaced people flood to Rafah amid relentless bombardment of other parts of Gaza, causing the city’s population to swell to 1.4 million, up from less than 500,000 before the war. “Every day dozens of (aid) trucks full of food and medical supplies pass by us,” the mother of five children said, adding that she only received aid twice though international agencies.
She said they received 33 food packages of meat, peas, chickpeas, and mixed vegetables, in addition to halva, which covered their needs for a few days. “Then we have to buy rice, flour and other things to eat,” she said.
Many countries and international agencies have repeatedly urged the Israeli occupation to scale the aid delivery to the strip to reach 500 trucks daily — the prewar daily average — up from dozens allowed daily right now. Yet the Israeli occupation has not responded to any requests, forcing some countries to airdrop aid to the starving population.
Illegal means
Another woman, who also shelters close to the Rafah crossing as Arafa, said she was forced to obtain aid in an illegal way. The widow, whose husband was killed in an Israeli airstrike, dispatches her two sons to forcefully take some aid from passing trucks, so that she can secure food for her family, she said.
“Maybe what we are doing is not right, but we want to eat, and I don’t want my children to die of hunger,” she told Al Manassa, noting that her family had received direct aid only twice. “Other camps and areas have received aid from more than one source. The surplus was sold and spread in the markets.”
Many displaced people have complained that aid does not cover their daily needs, and that they don’t even have mattresses and blankets. Other areas and camps, especially in shelter centers, received large quantities of aid. Many displaced received relief and food aid from several parties. Some of them even received rations of fresh vegetables picked from the remaining agricultural lands in the strip.
A displaced man in his 50s from northern Gaza said he received food rations, blankets, and mattresses that exceeded his needs. He didn’t mind receiving more. “It is true that it is more than what I need, but also the food rations do not include all the needs,” said the man who refused to give his real name.
The man, who was a construction laborer, said he sold some of the aid in the market at higher prices to buy other necessities including vegetables, sugar, meat, salt and eggs. “We do not need aid or more,” said the man who spends his day searching for aid. “They should stop the war and allow us to import goods; allow us to work and earn (our living) as we used to do.”
Aid has become the sole source of food for most of the displaced.