Caught between starvation and deadly aid centres

As the sun set over the outskirts of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, Hana Suleiman, a Palestinian woman in her fifties, returned home exhausted after a long day scouring the markets for a bit of flour. She managed to bring back just one kilogram—barely enough to divide among eight hungry mouths: five boys and three girls, each anxiously waiting for a piece of bread to ease the ache in their stomachs, long accustomed to surviving on half a meal a day. 

"I divided the dough like it was gold," says Hanaa, known as Umm Bashir, as she mixes the flour with leftover pasta she grinds up to increase the size of the batch. "Each person gets a small loaf, and we divide the week into bread days and pasta or rice days."

Hanaa's is one of thousands of families who have been starving since 2 March, when all aid was halted, and now survive by scavenging for just one meal a day. For nearly three months, the Israeli military blocked all food aid from entering the Strip. It wasn't until 27 May—under international pressure—that aid resumed, channelled through a new distribution system run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an organisation backed by Israel and the United States.

"Death Trap"

"I never imagined bread would become a luxury, that one loaf would require so much planning and manoeuvring," Hanaa says bitterly.  

Four distribution points were established, three in the southern Gaza Strip and one in the centre. What were initially presented as "glimmers of hope" quickly turned into "death traps," as Gaza residents describe them. The haphazard distribution at these points has transformed them into arenas of chaos and constant danger.  

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini described the new system as "a despicable act that humiliates desperate people" and "a death trap that claims more lives than it saves." However, Israel says the system was put in place to prevent Hamas from stealing humanitarian aid.  

The suffering recounted by Wael Al-Abdallah, 30, captures the harsh reality. On 6 June, after days of indecision, he left his home at dawn in search of a carton of milk for his infant, who was not yet five months old. He said goodbye to his wife as if heading into a battle from which he might not return, then made his way to the US aid distribution point in the Sultan neighbourhood of southern Gaza. 

After walking for four hours, he arrived to find thousands of hungry people crowded behind barbed wire—a now-familiar scene of chaos. But he hadn't expected it to turn into one of terror. Without warning, an Israeli soldier opened fire on the crowd. Dozens dropped to the ground as panic swept through, and people scattered in all directions, Al-Abdallah recalled.

"I found myself in the middle of a storm of chaos," Wael says. "I fell to the ground and rose again, covered in dust and weighed down by the bitterness of survival. I felt that everything was over; no milk, no aid, just emptiness."

Wael returned home empty-handed. His baby's cries were a painful reminder of the day's failure. In an effort to ease the hunger, his wife suggested making lentil soup as a substitute for milk. "My baby struggled to eat the soup," Wael said, "and my heart broke for him. But eventually, he began to calm down a little."

One meal a day

Ibrahim Al-Sulaiki, 45, who was displaced from Jabalia camp in northern Gaza to a camp near Gaza Port in the western part of the Strip, didn't manage to receive his food ration. The only time he visited the aid distribution centre, the overwhelming chaos made it impossible. 

Ibrahim, a father of four children, the eldest of whom is eight, explains that they eat one meal a day. Some days, it's mujadara made from rice, lentils and pasta; other days, a mix of beans and fava beans.

He explains that sugar has become a source of tension in his household, with a kilogram costing up to 300 shekels ($80) on the market. "My children want tea with sugar, but we don't have enough. We take turns—one day with sugar, the next without." He has even resorted to alternatives for coffee, roasting and grinding date pits and boiling them with cardamom to make homemade "coffee".

Bartering for goods

Faced with a shortage of money and aid, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have resorted to bartering for goods. Young people have created WhatsApp groups under the name "Badalni" where members advertise what they have and what they need, in an attempt to revive solidarity networks.

Abdullah Matar, 40, a father of four, swapped 3 kilograms of lentils for one kilogram of sugar, and half a kilogram of flour for cooking oil. "There's no money in our pockets, and there's no safety at aid centres. We survive by exchanging goods with our neighbours, one commodity for another," he says.  

"We want to live and feed our children," he adds. "Hunger no longer differentiates between young and old."  

Palestinian economic analyst Ahmed Abu Qamar asserts that more than two million people in Gaza are currently facing advanced stages of forced hunger, amid an economic collapse, rising prices and a lack of cash. Before the war, he explains, Gaza needed more than 800 trucks per day to meet the minimum food needs of its population, but was only receiving around 400. Since the outbreak of the war in October 2023, that number has dropped to an average of just 14 trucks per day, according to Abu Qamar.

Abu Qamar calls for the resumption of aid distribution through the United Nations and its partner organisations, and for a digital distribution system that ensures fairness—away from scenes of humiliation and needless death.

While Matar awaits a ceasefire and the resumption of aid, Wael Al-Abdallah continues his daily adventure of going to aid distribution centres in search of milk for his child. He knows he may not return, but he wanted to leave behind a message: "If I don't return, let my child know that his father tried." 

This is an edited translation of the Arabic original.