Many in Gaza are eating just once a day, as hunger spreads

Children use spoons to eat lentils from a pan while sitting on a rug

By Wafaa Shurafa and Fatma Khaled

Nov. 22, 2024 Updated 2:14 PM PT

DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip — Yasmin Eid coughs and covers her face, cooking a small pot of lentils over a fire fed with twigs and scrap paper in the tent she shares with her husband and four young daughters in the Gaza Strip.

It was their only meal Wednesday — it was all they could afford.

“My girls suck on their thumbs because of how hungry they are, and I pat their backs until they sleep,” she said.

After being displaced five times, the Eids reside in central Gaza, where aid groups have relatively more access than in the north, which has been largely isolated and heavily destroyed since Israel began waging a renewed offensive against the militant group Hamas in early October. But nearly everyone in Gaza is going hungry these days. In the north, experts say a full-blown famine may be underway.

On Thursday, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, accusing them of using “starvation as a method of warfare” — charges Israel adamantly denies.

In Deir al Balah, the Eids are among hundreds of thousands sheltering in squalid tent camps. The local bakeries shut down for five days this week. The price of a bag of bread climbed above $13 by Wednesday, as bread and flour vanished from shelves before more supplies arrived.

The United Nations humanitarian office has warned of a “stark increase” in the number of households experiencing severe hunger in central and southern Gaza. It appeared to be linked to the robbery at gunpoint of nearly 100 aid trucks last weekend in southern Gaza, close to Israeli military positions. Israel blamed Hamas but appears to have taken no action to stop the looting; Hamas said it was the work of local bandits.

Aid groups say the looting is one of many obstacles to getting food and other vital aid to the territory’s 2.3 million Palestinians. They also have to contend with Israeli movement restrictions, ongoing fighting, and heavy damage wreaked by the Israeli bombardment of roads and crucial infrastructure.

Hunger is a daily routine

For months, Yasmin and her family have gone to bed hungry.

“Everything has increased in price, and we cannot buy anything,” she said. “We always go to sleep without having dinner.”

She misses coffee, but a single packet of Nescafe goes for around $1.30. Two pounds of onions go for $10, a medium bottle of cooking oil for $15 — if available. Meat and chicken all but vanished from the markets months ago, but there are still some local vegetables. Such sums are astronomical in an impoverished territory where few people earn regular incomes.

Crowds of hundreds wait hours to get food from charities, which are also struggling.

Hani Almadhoun, co-founder of the Gaza Soup Kitchen, said his teams can offer only small bowls of rice or pasta once a day. He said they “can go to the market on one day and buy something for $5, and then go back in the afternoon to find it doubled or tripled in price.”

Its kitchen in the central town of Zuweida operated on a daily budget of about $500 for much of the war. When the amount of aid entering Gaza plummeted in October, its costs climbed to around $1,300 a day. It can feed about half of the 1,000 families who line up each day.

The sharp decline in aid, and a U.S. ultimatum

Israel says it places no limits on the amount of aid entering Gaza and has announced a number of measures it says are aimed at increasing the flow in recent weeks, including the opening of a new crossing. It blames U.N. agencies for not retrieving the aid, pointing to hundreds of truckloads languishing on the Gaza side of the border.

But the military’s own figures show that the amount of aid entering Gaza plunged to around 1,800 trucks in October, down from more than 4,200 the previous month. At the current rate of entry, around 2,400 trucks would come into Gaza in November. Around 500 trucks entered each day before the war.

The U.N. says fewer than half the truckloads are actually distributed because of ongoing fighting, Israeli denial of movement requests, and the breakdown of law and order. Hamas-run police have vanished from many areas after being targeted by Israeli airstrikes.

The latest war started Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. About 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead. Hamas militants have repeatedly regrouped after Israeli operations, carrying out hit-and-run attacks from tunnels and bombed-out buildings.

Israel’s retaliatory bombardment and ground attacks have killed more than 44,000 Palestinians, at least half of them women and children, according to local health authorities, whose numbers do not differentiate between combatants and civilians.

The United States warned Israel in October that it might be forced to curtail some of its crucial military support if Israel did not rapidly ramp up the amount of aid entering Gaza. But after the 30-day ultimatum expired, the Biden administration declined to take any action, saying there had been some progress.

The U.S. Senate this week rejected attempts by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and a small group of Democrats to block sales of some tank and mortar rounds and smart-bomb kits to Israel for its war in Gaza over mounting civilian deaths.

Israel meanwhile passed legislation severing ties with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA. Israel accuses the agency of allowing itself to be infiltrated by Hamas — allegations denied by the United Nations.

Israeli news outlets have reported that officials are considering plans for the military to take over aid distribution or contract it out to private security companies. Asked about such plans Wednesday, government spokesman David Mercer said, “Israel is looking at many creative solutions to ensure a better future for Gaza.”

Yoav Gallant, the former defense minister who was seen as a voice of moderation in the far-right government before being fired this month, warned on X that handing over aid distribution to a private firm was a “euphemism for the beginning of military rule.”

As that debate plays out in Jerusalem, less than 60 miles from central Gaza, most Palestinians in the territory are focused on staying alive in a war with no end in sight.

“I find it difficult to talk about the suffering we are experiencing. I am ashamed to talk about it,” said Yasmin’s husband, Hani. “What can I tell you? I’m a person who has 21 family members and is unable to provide them with a bag of flour.”

In Gaza and Lebanon

Friday in Gaza, Israeli strikes hit Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the few hospitals still partially operating in the northernmost part of the Palestinian territory, wounding nine medical staff members and damaging its generator and oxygen systems, its director said.

Hossam Abu Safiya said strikes before dawn Friday hit the entrance of the emergency unit as well as in the hospital courtyard. He said six staff were wounded, including two critically. Friday night, he said an armed drone hit the entrance again, wounding three staffers. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Abu Safiya said the strikes caused damage to the functioning of the generator and disrupted oxygen supplies. The hospital is treating 85 wounded, 14 children in the pediatric ward and four newborns in the neonatal unit, he said.

During the last month, Kamal Adwan Hospital has been hit several times, was put under siege and was raided by Israeli troops, who are waging a heavy offensive in the nearby Jabaliya refugee camp and towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya. The Israeli military says it detained Hamas fighters hiding in the hospital, a claim its staff denies.

In Lebanon, where Israel and the militant group Hezbollah are battling, an Israeli airstrike killed the director of a university hospital and six others at his home in northeastern Lebanon, state media said.

The strike targeted Dr. Ali Allam’s house near Dar Al-Amal Hospital, the largest health center in Baalbek-Hermel province, which has provided vital health services amid Israel’s campaign of airstrikes, the Health Ministry said. State-run media reported that the strike came without warning.

In two separate episodes Friday, Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon killed five paramedics with Hezbollah’s medical arm, the health ministry said, describing it as “war crime.” The militant group provides extensive social services, including running schools and health clinics.

Shurafa and Khaled write for the Associated Press. Shurafa reported from Deir al Balah, Khaled from Cairo. AP writer Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.