One day, three diaries from the brink of famine in Gaza, where even rotten food ‘feels like a victory’

A charity kitchen at the Nuseirat refugee camp on 5 May 2025

Nagham Zbeedat and Rawan Suleiman report in Haaretz on 19 May 2025:

The current aid blockade imposed by Israel is the longest since the war began in October 2023: No food or humanitarian supplies have entered the Gaza Strip since March 2.

On Sunday night, 78 days into the aid blockade, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel will allow a “basic amount” of food into the Strip – a decision met with immediate backlash from ministers in his government, plus many in the Israeli opposition, who see the flow of minimal humanitarian aid as a sign that Netanyahu shows “zero resistance against international pressure.”

The majority of Gaza’s population was surviving on goods brought in during the brief November 2024 cease-fire, but those supplies have long since run out. With food nearly impossible to obtain, many families survive on just one meal a day – if they eat at all.   Staples like flour, milk, eggs and meat have vanished from the markets. As aid starts to trickle in, it’s unclear how it will be distributed and how long it will take for supplies to reach those in need.

With no access to cooking gas, residents have turned to constructing makeshift wood fires and burning trash or plastic to prepare rice, beans and canned food.

In some cases, people have begun burning personal book collections and home libraries for firewood; one Gaza resident wrote on Facebook that a bakery owner offered to buy what remained of his library just to keep his oven running, saying “I wish I had died before this.” Some resort to catching turtles and foraging for mallow plants and strawberry leaves.

In conversations with Haaretz, Palestinians in Gaza describe the daily ordeal of searching for food, surviving the journey home and preparing a meal under conditions that turn a basic right, and necessity, into an exhausting struggle.

Israa, 33, displaced to Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza
5 A.M.
It’s still dark, and the cold air bites at my hands as I sit up on the mat where all five of us sleep. My three children – two girls and a boy – are still wrapped in thin blankets. I barely slept. Even on the quiet nights, when no bombs shake the ground and the sky stays still, the moment I close my eyes, I see the airstrikes. Those sharp white streaks in Gaza’s sky. They’ve burned themselves into my memory.

I woke up today like every morning at five, just like a machine. As usual, I tried to leave early before the lines formed, before the streets felt too alive with hunger. I walk through the ruined paths of Nuseirat camp. It takes me 10 minutes to reach the saltwater spot – and 10 back, lugging heavy containers. My legs ache, but I can’t stop.

By the time I returned, the kids were still half-asleep. I poured the salt water I managed to fetch into a plastic bowl and began wiping the plastic sheets that line the tent floor. The water stings my cracked fingers. But it’s just part of my routine now.

I tried starting a small campaign online, asking for help. Some people donated. Most ignored it. I don’t blame them. The world is tired of hearing about Gaza.

Israa 6:15 A.M.
After cleaning, I walked for a few minutes to fetch drinking water from the nearby distribution spot. The line was already long when I arrived. Women like me, tired, hungry, anxious, all clutching empty bottles and jugs. I stand, shift my weight from foot to foot, wait, and think.

Sometimes, when we’re lucky, a mobile water tank parks just below our house and distributes drinking water. But the crowds are so chaotic I can’t risk going. My husband goes instead, and even then it takes him hours to push through and return with a few bottles.

It’s in these moments of stillness that my memories creep in. I think about Egypt, where I was born 33 years ago. I was a child of Palestinians in a country that never welcomed us. We were always foreigners there. I remember the day in 2005 when I came back to Gaza, a 14-year-old girl walking down the streets of Gaza City, tears on my cheeks for reasons I couldn’t explain. That was the first time I felt I belonged somewhere.

Israa resorting to burning trash to be able to cook food. “We’ve run out of cooking gas, so we rely on wood, and even a full stack of logs rarely lasts a single day,” Israa explains.

8 A.M.
I finally returned to the tent, dragging the water containers. My arms ache, my back tightens. My husband sometimes helps the kids prepare what barely qualifies as breakfast, a few crumbs of bread soaked in tea, if we’re lucky, or a couple of tomato slices and a lone chili pepper.

I miss the days when my husband had his job at the grocery store. It wasn’t much, but it gave us rhythm, predictability, dignity. That’s gone now. Since we fled Gaza City after the Israeli army issued an evacuation order, life in this tent in Nuseirat refugee camp has reduced us to survival mode. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemies.

10 A.M.
I tried to prepare one meal for the day. There was no gas, so I used the wood we managed to gather yesterday. It’s never enough. A whole bundle burns out before the pasta even boils.

Sometimes we eat lentils; sometimes just boiled spaghetti. One plate, split between five people. If I’m lucky, there’s salt. We don’t eat to feel full anymore. We eat to avoid collapsing.

1:30 P.M.
The sun was high. I sat in front of the tent, fanning the weak flames under a blackened pot. I remember other wars. I’ve lived through them all. The one in 2008 – I was just 18, a new student at Al-Aqsa University, studying information technology, filled with dreams. Then the sky lit up with bombs. I saw body parts in the street. That kind of fear never leaves you.

I remember running to the border when it ended, desperate to get back to Egypt, to my family. But I didn’t have Egyptian residency. They closed the gates. I stood there alone knowing that rejection will echo inside me.

3 P.M.
My son asked me if we can have falafel again like “the time we had a feast.” He was talking about a week ago, when we somehow managed to pull enough money together. I bartered flour for sugar and made tea. The kids were giggling – I almost forgot we were in a war.  Falafel. Tea. Those are luxuries now, reserved for people who still have savings or relatives abroad. I tried starting a small campaign online, asking for help. Some people donated. Most ignored it. I don’t blame them. The world is tired of hearing about Gaza.

5:30 P.M.
The tent smelled like smoke, thick and bitter, from the wood fires people light outside, mixed with the acrid scent of something burned nearby. The meal was ready, spaghetti again. I divided it into five small bowls, careful to make each portion look full.

My youngest girl, Mariam, looked up and asked softly, “Will there be more?” Her eyes are wide, not demanding – just hoping. I kissed her forehead and whispered, “Tomorrow, habibti.” The words came out easily, but in my chest, something tightened. I didn’t know if I’m lying, or just trying to believe it myself.  As I watched her eat, I remembered the last cease-fire: how the markets overflowed with vegetables and fruits, how I carried home bags full of tomatoes, cucumbers, even strawberries for the children.

Israa’s tahini hummus and garlic

Now, I sometimes resort to using sacks of spoiled flour, crawling with mites, brushing them out grain by grain just to make something edible.

7 P.M.
Night falls early here. The cold creeps in. The children are huddled under one blanket. Bilal sat beside me silently. I can feel his worry without him saying a word. I think of all the things I’ve lost. My studies. My city. My sense of self. But I still have my children, and my love for them is the only warmth I can count on now.

What frightens me most is tomorrow – that it will be just like the other days I’ve endured, days spent chasing food, walking for hours through the rubble and dust, only to return with nothing, or almost nothing. Like that afternoon I wandered until sunset and came back with a single tahini hummus can and six cloves of garlic. 18 shekels for that, nearly five dollars.

I whisper to myself before I close this notebook: If we die, at the very least, let us die full.

Sarah, 27, displaced to southern Gaza
Sarah and her 12-person family – including her parents, her siblings and their children – are sheltering in an UNRWA school.  The family, the youngest of whom is 1.5 years old, is living inside a classroom with another family which has eight members. After Sarah’s family house was destroyed in the beginning of the war, the family had to evacuate from northern Gaza to the south, before going back up north during the cease-fire.

8 A.M.
My 16-year-old brother and 12-year-old brother are tasked with securing food for the family’s survival from a community kitchen in the school. They squeeze between the scores of children and adults, pushing their way to reach the pots of food.  The 16-year-old has been burned a few times from the pots. Sometimes, he returns full of shame because he failed to fulfill his responsibility – not because he isn’t capable, but because there just isn’t enough food for everyone.

10 A.M.
For a while, after the death of his eldest son, my father, who is 65, was too consumed with grief to assist the family in the daily tasks of survival. Recently, he has resumed his responsibilities. He used to be ashamed to go to the community kitchen and water tanks, but he hasn’t given up, despite the pain and his feeling of weakness from hunger. I’m proud of him.

Today it was my father who returned with food: rice and lentils, like so many days before. The boys couldn’t get any. The aid workers had to decrease their output, going from cooking four large pots for the hundreds of people taking shelter in the school to cooking two pots daily.

They don’t fill up the pots completely; they barely cover the bottom of the pot. That’s why we keep some rice for emergencies, in case we don’t get anything. I remember the last proper meal I had. It was during Ramadan over a year ago: rice and salad. We were still in the south.

11 A.M.
We need to start a fire to cook the rice we keep for emergencies. This is when my job begins. First, I light a sponge, or a piece of cloth, then add some wood. In order to keep the fire going, I add a piece of water hose. I’m proud of myself – I was a hairdresser before the war, and now I am someone who does things she never thought she would do, like light the fire.

12 P.M.
I’m also in charge of carrying the water up to the second floor. Water doesn’t flow through the pipes, and it’s not always available. If a wagon comes with the water tank it means there was a foreign donation. It used to come twice a day, but it has been coming less and less.  Today, we got only two buckets of water, which is not enough to do anything. It will be used for drinking, but there won’t be any laundry done. When we can we recycle used water for toilets and washing dishes.

2 P.M.
There was an Israeli strike not far from us, but don’t worry, we are okay.

I didn’t have one minute of happiness today. I got bad news about my nephew who was injured not long ago in a strike. He has lost the ability to move or to speak.

6 P.M.
I care for my 1.5-year-old and 3-year-old nephews. They lost their mother in the current war and were both lifted out from the rubble. I have nothing to give them, no biscuits or chocolate. We can’t afford to buy any treats, even if the crossings were to open.  The word “buy” has been deleted from our daily vocabulary. Instead, some people here make cookies from wheat which has gone bad and is full of worms, with barely any sugar. Each child gets only one cookie.

10 P.M.
One of my nephews is crying his heart out because he’s hungry. All I can do is give him some rice, but he wants bread. Our only hope is that we will get a care package from one of the aid organizations soon.

Daher, 33, displaced to Khan Yunis in southern Gaza
6 A.M.
The streets are quiet at this hour, but the markets are already crowded. I walk for hours, searching for anything edible – vegetables, grains, anything to keep us alive. The prices are absurd. Most days, I leave with nothing. Today, after three hours of bargaining and pleading, I managed to buy one kilogram of half-rotten eggplants and one kilogram of zucchini for 100 shekels (about $28).

As I walk, I think of the past, when markets were full, when I could provide for my family without shame. Now, even this spoiled food feels like a victory.

9 A.M.

Displaced Palestinians flee Khan Yunis amid an ongoing Israeli military offensive in southern Gaza on 19 May 2025

The drone’s buzz follows me as I head back to the tent we now call home. That sound – constant, menacing – reminds me how powerless we are.  I remember the day we fled our house in the north, thinking Shujaiyeh [east of Gaza City] would be safer. Then the bombs came.  My wife Kholoud, then six months pregnant, didn’t want to leave in the first place. She was right. The strike injured her, took our unborn child, and left us with nothing but grief.

The drone’s buzz follows me as I head back to the tent we now call home. That sound – constant, menacing – reminds me how powerless we are.

10 A.M.
I hand the vegetables to Kholoud, who barely reacts. She’s exhausted, like all of us. She takes the empty water containers and leaves, joining the shorter women’s line. Our four-year-old son Yousef clings to me, his small body too thin.

11 A.M.
I stand in line for the bathroom, one of dozens shared by hundreds. Children wait barefoot, their feet cracked. My heart twists; my son could be among them soon.  If I let one child cut ahead, others will expect the same. So I stay silent, the guilt heavy in my chest. “I don’t want this for my boy,” I think, watching a boy shiver in line. I don’t want him to grow up waiting for food, water or a toilet. I don’t want others to look at him with pity the way I look at them now.

4 P.M.
The sun still burns at this time. Kholoud kneels, arranging the wood. I move to help, but she shakes her head. She lights a sponge first, the acrid smell of burning plastic mixing with the dry air. As the flames catch the wood, Kholoud puts a pinch of salt on the sliced vegetables that I bought her the other day. I think of the spoiled grains I traded for this bag of salt, hoping for something better than wilted mallow leaves and rotting vegetables.  We survive through these small exchanges. Yesterday, we fought for sugar. Tomorrow, we’ll trade that sugar for bread. Nothing lasts.

6 P.M.
The sun starts to set, but the drones don’t leave. Since Kholoud lost her phone as we were running away from airstrikes, I can’t afford to buy her a new one. I give her my phone to check the news and social media. Her family texts me checking up on her, on us, and I give her the space to escape, even for a brief moment.  I hold onto Yousef’s hand as we wander the camp, offering help with setting up tents, checking what we can exchange or sell; I try to do anything to secure tomorrow’s meal.

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