The UN’s World Food Programme, a lifeline for millions of people in Gaza who rely on it for food aid, has run out of its food stores. Palestinians in Gaza say that famine isn’t imminent — it’s already here.
Tareq S. Hajjaj
Aside from the intermittent bombardment and shelling, something more constant preoccupies Muhammad al-Hajj Ahmad, 54. A resident of the Zeitoun neighborhood east of Gaza City, Hajj Ahmad cannot stop thinking about how he is going to feed his seven children, the eldest of whom is 16. Since the beginning of the war, he and his family have relied on food distribution points run by relief organizations, as well as individual and collective initiatives. The last satisfying meal he and his family ate was two weeks ago.
‘Since the beginning of the war, we’ve gotten used to eating one meal a day,’ Hajj Ahmad says in video testimony for Mondoweiss. ‘If we’re lucky, we sometimes get dinner. We get our main daily meal from food distribution points, but they’re dwindling, and most have closed, so we don’t have a main meal anymore. It means death for us and our children.’
As a result of the stifling blockade imposed by Israel, which has been ongoing for close to two months since Israel blew up the short-lived ceasefire with Hamas, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has now announced that it has run out of its food stores in Gaza.
‘All food stocks at the WFP for families in Gaza have been running out,’ Abeer Etefa, a spokesperson for the WFP, told Mondoweiss. ‘On Friday, the program distributed the last remaining stocks to hot-food kitchens in the Gaza Strip, and it is expected that these kitchens will run out of food within a day or two at most.’
Etefa says the hot-food kitchens, spread across various areas of the Gaza Strip, provide 25% of the daily food needs of the population, which has been a lifeline for millions.
Even before the war, about 80% of Gaza’s population relied on foreign aid and grants, especially for food, and during the war, UN programs have been the largest source of food supplies for the population.
‘This comes after the program stopped supporting bakeries that were distributing bread,’ Etefa indicated. ‘On March 31, all 25 bakeries supported by the World Food Programme closed due to a shortage of flour and cooking fuel, leading to their closure.’
Even before that date, many of those bakeries were gradually shutting down due to the fuel and flour shortage. At the time, food prices began to soar, making what little food was available inaccessible to Gazans and rendering them entirely dependent on UN agencies.
‘In addition, the food rations the Programme was distributing to families, which were sufficient for two weeks, have now been exhausted,’ Etefa added, expressing ‘grave concerns’ about the food situation in the Gaza Strip, which has been ‘exacerbated by the state of markets and food systems.’
‘Food prices have increased by approximately 1,400% compared to the ceasefire period, if such commodities were available,’ Etefa explained. ‘And there is a severe shortage of foodstuffs, which raises serious concerns about the nutrition of the most vulnerable groups, especially children under five, pregnant and lactating women, and the elderly.’
This has made it impossible for people like Muhammad al-Hajj Ahmad to find adequate sources of nutrition for his family. ‘Even if I had money, there’s nothing to buy with it,’ Hajj Ahmad explained. ‘And if there are, they are too costly. If I wanted to buy two potatoes, tomatoes, and cucumbers, it would cost me more than 500 Israeli shekels [$137].’
‘Even the water, we know, is undrinkable, but we have no other choice,’ he said. ‘We live in famine, but the world has come to see it as normal, because it’s happened before; once, twice, and this is the third time.’
‘It would be easier for my children to die in an Israeli strike than to die of hunger before my eyes, and unable to feed them,’ he said.
Famine ‘already here’
Stockpiling during the recent 42-day truce between January and March allowed the World Food Programme to operate until last Friday. Whatever was stored by organizations and individuals during the ceasefire will not be sufficient for much longer.
Meanwhile, the WFP has been amassing new stockpiles of food, but not inside Gaza. ‘The WFP has over 116,000 tons of food aid, enough to feed one million people for four months, already waiting at aid corridors and border crossings,’ Etifa explains. ‘It is ready to be brought into Gaza by the WFP and its partners as soon as the crossings reopen.’
But the images of long queues of thousands of trucks loaded with food and supplies on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing have continued.
Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza, says that while international organizations in the Gaza Strip are warning of the possibility of famine, Palestinians in Gaza are already experiencing it.
‘Famine is not imminent. Famine is already here. We are now living within its framework,’ al-Shawa told Mondoweiss. ‘The indicators that prove this are the closure of dozens of food distribution centers, the closure of bakeries, the widespread cases of malnutrition, and the results of anemia among women that appear in various tests.’
Al-Shawa confirmed that what is happening in the Gaza Strip is part of Israel’s plan to destroy its social fabric, which has rendered civilians ‘completely dependent on aid alone.’
‘And now, the occupation is halting the aid,’ he added.