Feature: Empty stalls, hollow stomachs -- Gaza's markets in age of blockade

The Star

3 days ago

GAZA, July 22 (Xinhua) -- At noon in Deir al-Balah's market square, Mohammed Nassar's shadow stretched thin across the bleached wood of empty stalls. His fingers trembled as they wiped sweat -- not from labor, but from exhaustion.
"I've been walking here since six in the morning," the 35-year-old from the city of central Gaza told Xinhua. "And there is simply nothing to eat."
"For over three weeks, my children and I haven't tasted bread. No vegetables, no fruit, no flour. I can hardly speak to you because of the hunger," he said.
Where spices once perfumed the air, only dust swirled. Where vendors once haggled, silence hung like a shroud. The markets in Deir al-Balah and other places in Gaza, such as Khan Younis and Gaza City, once arteries of commerce, have become synonyms for absence.
Fifteen more people, including four children, died from starvation in the past 24 hours, whereas 101 people, including 80 children, have lost their lives to hunger and malnutrition since March, the Gaza-based health authorities said Tuesday, adding that "the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate amid the ongoing Israeli blockade."
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said on social media platform X on Tuesday that "People in Gaza, including UNRWA colleagues, are fainting due to severe hunger. They are being starved."
"Meanwhile, just a few kilometers away from Gaza, supermarkets and shops are loaded with food and other goods. Lift the siege. Allow UNRWA to bring in food and medicines," it said.
The numbers are telling a story of cruelty, and the faces another one of desperation. Saleem al-Hato, a 50-year-old father of seven, was displaced from Gaza City and now resides in a makeshift shelter in Deir al-Balah.
"Yesterday, my daughter cried all day because she had nothing to eat. We asked our neighbors for help and received two cans of peas. That's all we had for the entire family," he lamented.
Even chroniclers of this crisis are crumbling. "Famine has reached a terrifying level. The markets are almost entirely empty, and whatever is available is far beyond the reach of ordinary people. A kilogram of flour now costs more than 200 shekels (over 50 U.S. dollars). I haven't been able to buy any for three days," Mohammed Odwan, a 39-year-old journalist and father of three, confessed.
"I am dizzy, weak, and can barely move. I cannot focus on reporting. My body is exhausted, and my children are hungry," Odwan said, voice fraying.
37-year-old photographer Abdel Hakim Abu Riash, 20 kilograms lighter, documented his own decline in a tent in Gaza City: "My wife and I skip meals just so our children can eat something, usually just one meal a day, and often not even that."
"The famine is not just taking lives; It's stripping people of their dignity. I can barely hold my camera anymore. Many of us go two days without eating a single thing. This is the reality for most Gazans now," he told Xinhua.
Bahaa Abu Sultan, a former trader, now lives as an unemployed, displaced person in a southern Gaza shelter. "Before the war, life was stable. We had food, water, jobs, shelter," he told Xinhua.
"Now, everything has collapsed. Hunger defines our lives. We are no longer the people we once were. I haven't eaten for two days. I try to sleep during the day to escape hunger. Most of us can barely stand on our feet anymore," he said.
As dusk falls, children would sleep on clothing piles, startled awake not by hunger pangs but Israeli airstrikes. Their parents, in the meantime, would whisper the same question: "Will tomorrow be the day we find bread?"