Gaza’s Palestinians ‘turning into ghosts’ as hunger intensifies

Ms Safaa Al-Adeli goes out at dawn every day to join the line to get bread for her family of seven in front of the Al-Banna bakery, the only one that is still operating in the city of Deir al-Balah, in the middle of the besieged Gaza Strip.

This bakery operates for only two hours a day due to the scarcity of flour, since Israel severely restricts the entry of humanitarian and emergency food aid to the residents of the Gaza Strip.

“We are living in a real famine, as there are no food supplies available in the markets, and we usually eat this bread without stuffing it with anything,” Al-Adeli tells The New Arab.

She pointed out that her family members suffer from malnutrition that has caused them to lose a lot of weight, adding, “During this war, I lost 20 kilograms. I have become like a ghost.”

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) began distributing emergency quantities of flour early this November, to include only families with more than 11 members, due to the shortage of available flour.

However, there are major concerns that UNRWA’s work in providing assistance to displaced Palestinians will stop after the Israeli Knesset’s decision on 28 October to ban dealings with this international agency, a decision that UNRWA considered “a dangerous precedent, and will only deepen the suffering of the Palestinians, especially in Gaza.”

“The market is empty of any goods. There has been no meat or poultry at all for weeks. There is no fruit of any kind. Most vegetables have completely disappeared, such as potatoes and garlic. Some are available, but at prices beyond what the displaced can afford,” Mohammed Mahdi, a merchant in the Deir al-Balah market, told TNA.

Mahdi accused Israel of linking the entry of humanitarian and food aid to Hamas’s ‘flexibility’ in negotiations to stop the war.

On 31 October, Hamas announced its rejection of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s proposal to conclude a brief and temporary ceasefire agreement, and said it supports any proposal that leads to a complete end to Israel’s war.

“I do not know how the democratic world governed by humanitarian laws remains silent about this Israeli policy. How do they allow them to starve us? We are losing weight terribly,” Mahdi added.

‘Is this real?’

In a corner of the market in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, a 14-year-old boy was sitting with a scale in front of him. He was calling on passers-by and displaced people to measure their weight for one shekel (amounting to about $0.3) and find out what the impact has been on their bodies.

28 years old Maram Al- Shorfa waited for her turn in a line of people in front of the scale. As soon as she put her feet on the scale, her eyes bulged and signs of shock were clear on her face. 

Al-Shorfa, who was displaced from Gaza City to the Nuseirat camp, said to TNA, “Before the war, I weighed 64 kilograms, but this scale tells me that I now weigh 51 kilograms.”

“Is this real or is it artificial intelligence?” she added sarcastically.

Despite Al-Shorfa’s initial disbelief at losing all these kilograms, soon after, she did not doubt the credibility of this scale. “The famine imposed by Israel on the Palestinians and the failure to allow sufficient quantities of food into the Strip caused people to lose weight dramatically,” she remarked. 

In the northern Gaza Strip, the situation is even worse, especially after the Israeli army invaded the areas of Jabalia, Beit Lahia, and Beit Hanoun on 6 October. The Israeli army completely prevents the entry of basic food supplies into these areas in order to force their residents to move south. 

But these residents refuse the evacuation orders and insist on staying for fear of repeating the tragedy of the 1948 Nakba, which led to the displacement of about 800,000 Palestinians from their villages and cities.

“There are hundreds of families in Jabalia living in indescribable famine, yet we prefer to die of hunger than to leave our homes,” Mohammed Obaid, a resident of Jabalia, said to TNA.

He explained that his weight before the war was 82 kilograms, and now due to the lack of food he weighs 52 kilograms.

“Israeli tanks pass by our homes constantly and shoot at anything that moves,” he added. 

‘Risk of famine’

In order to intensify the starvation, the Israeli army deliberately burned most of the agricultural areas in the Gaza Strip.

A report issued by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Center stated that the Israeli army destroyed more than 75% of the agricultural land in Gaza during the ongoing war.

Hussam Shahin, a general physician at the clinics of the (UNRWA), said to TNA, “The residents of Gaza suffer from terrible weight loss due to malnutrition that reaches the point of starvation due to the ongoing war.”

Shahin explained that the residents of the northern Gaza Strip rely primarily on canned legumes distributed by UNRWA as their only source of food, which are food items that contain preservatives, “and this does not help avoid malnutrition.”

He pointed out that canned foods contain chemicals such as “bisphenol A” (BPA) that may be harmful to health if consumed over time, and that the canning process itself may lead to the loss of some important vitamins and minerals, such as vitamin C.

The World Health Organisation warned that the residents of the Gaza Strip are exposed to a catastrophic level of hunger, and said in a statement on 17 October 2024: “A year after the conflict, the risk of famine remains present throughout the Gaza Strip. Given the recent escalation in hostilities, there are growing concerns that this worst-case scenario may come true.”

The statement explained that about 1.84 million people in the Gaza Strip suffer from high levels of acute food insecurity, including about 133,000 people in the catastrophic food insecurity stage.