In normal times, Palestinians are a nation of foodies. We think nothing of spending entire afternoons preparing elaborate feasts, inviting guests into our homes for dozens of traditional dishes. Even just a typical breakfast spread, for my wife and our three children, might involve eggs, cheese, jam, and olive oil, all accompanied by freshly baked flatbread.
But normal is a distant memory now. As I’m writing this, I can hear the whine of an Israeli drone hovering over my neighbourhood in central Gaza. We lost two relatives earlier this month: teenage boys sheltering in the basement of a UN school. All of our old open markets and food shops are gone. And the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, set up by Israel and America to distribute food aid, has quickly become a death trap.
Our days now begin with the only food we’ve got: lentil soup. We’ve had no bread for six days, and no meat for five months. At some point most mornings, one of us will head out to investigate what food we can buy, searching not for what we want, but just whatever is available.
In place of the old food shops, a handful of makeshift street stalls have cropped up, run by people we don’t know who control the prices, and who have raised them to extortionate levels. But these can disappear at any moment — because of bombing, or because there’s nothing left to sell. Before the war, one kilo of onions was less than £3. Now it costs £50. A kilo of sugar is £100.
Despite the prices at these stalls, I, like many others, have stopped going to aid centres and won’t let my family go either. My nearest Foundation distribution centre is four kilometres away at Netzarim. Getting there means walking through unsafe, open areas; we have heard about many who went there and never came back. Others did return, but with life-changing wounds. The safety of my sons, nephews, and other relatives is more important than food, and I will not gamble their lives for help we might not even receive. That’s why we rely on the stalls.
On a good day, if our trip to the stalls hasn’t been in vain, we will have one more meal: soup again, with maybe a few vegetables.
“The safety of my sons, nephews, and other relatives is more important than food, and I will not gamble their lives for help we might not even receive.”
Not everyone can afford the stalls though. My neighbour Ahed lost his job at a sweet shop, so now he’s completely dependent on humanitarian aid. As the head of a family with five children, including twins who were born during the war, he is at the mercy of aid centres for his children’s basic needs, like infant formula, which is not available from the market stalls.
The first time Ahed went to the distribution centre, he managed to get a box of supplies and made it home safely. But on the second occasion, he was stabbed and robbed by another Palestinian civilian. Security in Gaza is now non-existent and there are no police, so such events are commonplace. The third time, he was hit in the eye by an Israeli tear gas canister, which caused permanent damage to his vision. After these injuries, he stopped going to the aid centres out of fear for his life. Even though he urgently needs help, he now has to scramble to find other ways to get what his children need. In practice, this means asking the families of his wife and brother to share what little they have. They do their best, but there is never enough.
After the hunt for food comes the day’s second major task: waiting in a queue for hours on end to fill a few bottles from relief trucks or wells. It’s over 30°C every single day at this time of year, and the humidity is always high. Much of our water and sewage network has been destroyed, many municipal workers have been killed, and there is very little fuel for generators and pumping stations. All of this means that, if we’re lucky, we’ll get running water for a few precious hours every 10 days or two weeks at my still-standing, though badly damaged, house in central Gaza. When the water finally does come, it’s brackish and unpurified. We store it in barrels and ration every drop.
Hygiene has become non-existent. There is not enough water for bathing or washing clothes. Without water, it is impossible to use soap or shampoo, so allergies, rashes and skin diseases have become widespread.
I feel listless, dehydrated, and my voice is cracked and dry when I speak. We have no way to make the heat more bearable. Fans, air conditioning and refrigerators are useless, because there is usually no electricity — and this is especially tough for children and the elderly.
Many Gazans blame Hamas for our ongoing ordeal, not just Israel and the US. When food aid trucks have managed to enter Gaza, members of Hamas have taken the food and distributed it only to their own people, leaving everyone else to go hungry. They believe Hamas could have agreed to a new ceasefire weeks ago, and that they are blocking it for no good reason, imposing unnecessary conditions for the further release of hostages that they know Israel will not accept.
Support for Hamas in Gaza has collapsed, in my estimation, to 25% or less — a core vote consisting of fighters, their families, and those who work for government ministries. Hamas has made it seem that they do not care about human suffering, and this has eroded their popularity.
Despite the killing of some who protested in public against Hamas earlier this year, many Gazans now feel they have nothing to lose by openly speaking out against them. It will be when the war ends, many fear, that Hamas will exact its revenge, if they’re still in power.
But it’s difficult to envisage the future. Even if, thanks to the international pressure, we are at last inching towards another ceasefire of a few weeks, it is not nearly enough. Welcome as a ceasefire would be, we need a much longer truce designed to produce a lasting peace. But I don’t believe the plans advanced by President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have any chance of success, because they rely on the expulsion or voluntary departure of most or all of Gaza’s population via Egypt.
When the war does end, some of us will want to leave Gaza permanently for a new life outside, especially the young. Yet most do not want to abandon this land, but rebuild it. In any case, Egypt will not accept large numbers of Palestinian refugees. Like European countries, they fear a huge influx of migrants would cause internal problems. As for us Palestinians, we fear forced displacement more than anything else, and any plan that involves it will prolong, not end the violence.
Netanyahu’s plan to move hundreds of thousands of people into a small supposedly humanitarian enclave near Rafah, a scheme which even the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has described as a concentration camp, would also only lead to more killing and destruction. Besides, though Israel may be talking about this, I do not believe they will take this step, because the international pressure and the scheme’s opponents in Israel would simply be too strong.
Somehow, we have to work towards the creation of a professional, non-extremist government in Gaza, and a better future here and in the West Bank. I am certain this is what the majority of Gazans want: Palestinians and Israelis to co-exist and cooperate, away from the extremists on both sides who benefit from the war. Unfortunately, there is as yet no sign as to how this might be achieved.
Meanwhile, through this terrible summer, the people of Gaza wait — and make sure to sit away from the walls. In the past few weeks, my house has been hit by live rounds five times: all of the windows are gone. We spend our days calculating how much soup we can eat for breakfast, and how much water we can afford to drink.
