Bullets or starvation: Families struggle to survive in Gaza under siege

As Israel continues is bombardment of Gaza, an Islamic Relief aid worker* makes contact with a colleague elsewhere in the Gaza Strip. Amid a hunger crisis, the 2 friends discuss the challenges of finding food to eat.

Four months have passed since the start of this conflict, and now we are entering the fifth. The killing and destruction have never stopped. The death toll is beyond comprehension and the city looks like it’s been struck by an earthquake. The leaders of the world are still hesitant to call for a desperately needed ceasefire – a break, just to relieve the suffering of civilians who have nothing to do with this fight. We have been living through perhaps the hardest conditions seen anywhere in the world at this time; without food, water, shelter or clothes. On top of the rarity of these basic things, people also can’t access healthcare, education, or basic services. We can’t move freely. We can’t hope for a better future.

Just yesterday, I was lucky enough to make contact with my colleague who is still in the north of the Gaza Strip. There are people who didn’t or couldn’t evacuate Gaza City, when ordered to, and have remained there all this time. Khaled* is one of them. It has been hard to communicate with him, especially since most communication infrastructure has been damaged. When I am able to reach him, my main concern is checking that he is safe. This time, however, I managed to have a long talk with him.

I asked: “What do you eat? How do you manage to find food?” I was concerned about him and his family after hearing news about starvation in the city. I have seen an interview with someone from the World Food Programme (WFP) who said people in Gaza City and northern Gaza are at the most severe stage of hunger, which means they do not have access to food, do not have the tools to produce food, or do not have the resources to buy food. Khaled told me:

“We can only find rice. We have not had vegetables in months. Flour is becoming very scarce and even if we could find it, the price would be tremendous. One kilo of white flour costs around $13 (£10.00). We started grinding dried corn, which is normally used to feed animals, to make bread. People get killed when they try to go out and meet the assistance trucks arriving in Gaza from the United Nations. I can’t risk that, but I want to feed my family.”

As he described the situation, his despair and exhaustion were clear. He said that a 25kg pack of flour costs around $300 (£238) and the family has to use every speck carefully. Khaled told me that he searched the city with his in laws until they found a flour mill, hoping to buy anything they could. They were lucky to get some flour when many others could not. Khaled explained, “We make saj [a bread similar to Indian naan]. It is easier to make it on wood fire, but it does not keep my kids full. They always want something more to eat.”

Food has become scare in Gaza, with people reliant now on organisations including Islamic Relief and the WFP

‘Lucky days’

I thought about our ‘lucky days’ when we’d managed to find something special to eat – chicken, or a jar of Nutella for the kids in the early days of the bombardment. Khaled said a ‘lucky day’ for him would mean eating 2 meals, instead of just one. Most of the meals his family makes now contain just one ingredient – rice. They eat rice with carrots, rice with a can of sweetcorn, rice with spices or sometimes just plain white rice. He explained that almost everyone in the city is eating rice right now. A rice store had survived the airstrikes and bombing so everyone rushed to buy what they could.

Khaled tells me eggs are like gold. One egg costs more than a dollar and, on top of this, fears that they might not be safe to eat have made families wary of buying. Khaled says he cannot risk his family’s health in a place where there are no medical facilities. At one point, they managed to find a place that sold cheese and rushed to buy as much as they could. The 3 kilos lasted for 10 breakfasts, but the family has been struggling to find any more since.

Khaled may be among the lucky ones inside besieged Gaza City – he can at least still find something to eat, many are not so lucky. Lots of people have come to the place where I’m staying to ask for a loaf of bread. Chatting to them, I discovered they’re displaced from homes all around the Gaza Strip and are now without a place to stay or food to eat. They just knock on doors, asking for assistance and hoping for the best. I helped as much as I could, but my family and I are also getting by on a poor diet. Yes, we can find some different options, but they are not healthy at all. I am not saying I want to be on a keto or low-carb diet, I am talking about nourishing food for growing children. We mostly depend on canned food and limited vegetables. My children have not had any fruit since the conflict began, not even a single grape.

I know in wars people cannot expect to have everything, yet in Palestine we have nothing at all. This land was very fruitful, and everything was grown domestically, but now Israeli tanks sit on all the agricultural land in the Gaza Strip. Most of it has been bulldozed. They are literally starving Palestinians, starving us to death. We either get killed by bullets or by starvation – these 2 bitter choices are our only options.

Please help Islamic Relief support people in desperate need in Gaza: Donate to our Palestine Emergency Appeal now.

*This blog is anonymised to protect the safety and security of our colleague and others mentioned. Read the other blogs in this series here.

Editor’s note: This blog was submitted amid a fast-changing and deepening crisis. The information was correct as of Thursday 8 February.