‘What will we eat tomorrow?’: Gaza faces empty markets, renewed famine
Shaimaa Eid reports in The Palestine Chronicle on 25 October 2026:
As you walk among the tents sheltering displaced people in the Gaza Strip, it may not take long before you hear the question weighing heavily on parents’ hearts: “What will we eat today?”
It may sound like a simple question, but in Gaza, it carries a fear too profound for words: that children will wake up hungry and that, after hours of searching, their parents will return without anything to fill their stomachs.
The question has once again become impossible to escape as basic food supplies dwindle and vegetables and fruit grow increasingly scarce. Many families can no longer afford what little remains in the markets because of soaring prices.
Each day, parents face the same task: setting out early in search of something to feed their children, with no guarantee that they will find food or even return safely, as the ongoing genocidal war and bombardment continue around them.
In the Gaza Strip, where years of war and blockade have pushed families to the brink, fears of famine are resurfacing. Residents fear the beginning of a third wave of hunger, bringing back scenes of deprivation from which they have yet to recover.
Mohammed Shurrab, 42, a displaced father of three from Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, says reports of famine returning have brought back a terrifying feeling he thought he would never have to face again. “Since I heard that famine had returned, I felt as though a new nightmare was looming over me. When my children learned that the markets were empty or that basic goods had become extremely scarce, and that whatever was available was too expensive, they started crying,” he says.