Food has returned to Gaza’s markets but most people still can’t afford to eat
Tareq S. Hajjaj reports in Mondoweiss on 4 September 2026:
In a tent in Tal al-Hawa, west of Gaza City, 39-year-old Iman Abdel Karim, a mother of six, hands pieces of bread to her hungry children, some of whom are too young to have grown their teeth. Around her are a few empty cooking pots. At the entrance to the tent, the stove has not been lit either yesterday or today.
Abdel Karim and her family live on a single meal a day, usually eaten around noon. When available, it comes from a communal kitchen. When there is no food from the kitchens, they eat bread alone. Sometimes they manage to get a meal from a neighboring tent, or they cook lentils – long among the cheapest foods in Gaza, though even lentil prices have risen beyond what some families can afford.
“My children see some vegetables and fruit with the neighbors, and they start asking me for some,” Abdel Karim says. “But even though some fruit, vegetables, and other foods are available in the markets, we cannot buy anything. We have been living in tents for more than two years. We have spent all our money trying to stay alive, and we have nothing left.”
Food is visible in Gaza’s markets for the first time in years, but hunger is not gone. According to the August 2026 IPC report, more than 1.4 million people, or two-thirds of Gaza’s population, are projected to face Crisis conditions or worse through December 2026. The presence of goods on shelves has not translated into food security for the majority of Gaza’s population, whose purchasing power has been destroyed by more than two years of war, displacement, and economic collapse.