The daily hunt for food in Gaza

For two million hungry Gazans, most days are a difficult time searching for something to eat. Amany Mteir, 52, walks the streets in northern Gaza City, where people sell or trade what food they have. It was the scene along Saftawy Street two weeks ago.

Further north, in Beit Lahia, Aseel Mutair, 21, said she and her family of four became separated a pot of soup from a kitchen helper twice last week. One day they only had tea.

Nizar Hammad, 30, is sheltering in a tent in Rafah with seven other adults and four children. They have not received aid for two weeks and Nizar worked two days in a market to earn enough money to buy the aid. bags of rice at a street vendor.

As the war in Gaza enters its sixth month, the risk of famine and starvation is acute, according to the United Nations. Humanitarian groups have warned that deaths from malnutrition-related causes are only just beginning.

The war, including Israeli bombing and siege, has choked off food imports and destroyed agriculture, and almost the entire population of Gaza relies on limited humanitarian aid to feed themselves. The United States and others are looking for ways to move their supplies by sea and air.

The problems are particularly worrying in the north, where aid is almost non-existent. U.N. agencies have mostly suspended aid operations there, citing Israeli restrictions on convoys, security concerns and poor roads.

The New York Times asked three families to share photos and videos of their foraging over the past few weeks. They all said that it was getting harder and harder to find food and that most of the time they didn’t know if they were going to eat.

One meal a day

Humanitarian aid convoys are not reaching homes in Aseel and Amany in the north, and they have decided it is too dangerous to travel to find them. Instead, they leave early most days to explore informal street markets like this one.

Most food stores in northern Gaza are damaged or closed, so vendors have opened informal street markets to sell food and other items.

Some sellers once operated grocery stores and are selling what stock they have left. Others buy and resell humanitarian aid. On average, only six commercial trucks carrying food and other supplies have been allowed into Gaza each day since early December.

One of the cheapest foods Aseel’s family can find is ground barley, which before the war was used in animal feed. Corn flour is sometimes available but is more expensive.

Aseel’s mother used these ingredients to prepare a palm-sized piece of pita bread for each of them. “I can’t even describe how horrible it tastes,” Aseel said.

Even when Aseel’s family finds food before the afternoon, they wait to eat their only meal until dinner time so that they can sleep better.

Recently, his father found this small amount of rice at a street vendor’s table, and a day later, after five hours of searching, he found this portion of flour. The discovery made the family festive, but the inflated prices cut into their savings.

Aseel’s parents were unemployed before the war, but received help from social services because his mother was suffering from cancer.

One night, Aseel, his parents and his brother Muhammad shared a can of mushrooms to accompany the rice. Aseel said she tried to convince herself it tasted like chicken.

With the flour, they prepared traditional pita bread and ate it with this soup made from the leaves of a wild plant known as khubeiza.

Aseel’s family prepares and eats soup made from khubeiza leaves when there is nothing else to eat.

Last week they had no luck on the markets. So on Monday, 16-year-old Muhammad waited in line for two hours at a tekeyah, a charity kitchen, at a nearby school. He brought home a bowl of rice soup for the family, but Aseel said he told her he didn’t like being seen as a beggar.

Aseel ate five dates from the family stash and drank a cup from her last pot of instant coffee, a souvenir from her life as a university student before the war.

The next day, Aseel’s father and brother spent hours on their feet looking for supplies. They visited Aseel’s aunt and reluctantly asked her for food. She shared a small amount of lentils. They ate them that night and completed the dates they had planned to save.

The next day they were too weak to check the markets again and there was no food at the aid kitchen. Instead, they drank tea.

What Aseel’s family of four ate every day from February 28 to March 7

Wednesday	A pot of khubeiza leaf soup
THURSDAY	A pot of khubeiza leaf soup
Friday	Rice and a can of mushrooms
SATURDAY	A pot of khubeiza leaf soup and pita bread made from white flour
Sunday	A pot of khubeiza leaf soup
Monday	Tekeyah rice soup and some dates
Tuesday	Lentils and dates
Wednesday	Tea
THURSDAY	Tekeyah carrot soup

“Human beings are energy, and my energy is exhausted,” Aseel said. “I can’t take more than this.”

Like Aseel, Amany’s family drinks tea to feel full. They used to fetch water from a nearby mosque, but since it was bombed, they buy it from the trucks that pass most of the time.

Amany boils water for tea over a fire made from scrap wood.

His family – seven adults, including his three sons and their wives – survives on a broth made from water and chicken broth cubes.

“When I can’t think and don’t know what to do, I focus on the children, but it’s especially difficult when they tell you in the evening that there is no food,” said said Amany.

Lots to feed

In Rafah, where Nizar is taking refuge, aid deliveries have been more numerous than in the north. But the amount of food provided to each family – a bag of flour or a few cans of beans every few days – has not been enough, he said.

Over the past two weeks, Nizar’s family has received no help. They only have one bag of flour left.

The family used to dip into their savings to buy ingredients from street vendors, and Nizar’s mother would then prepare a meal for 12 people to share.

But Nizar said his family’s situation was getting worse. The money he was saving for his wedding has disappeared and prices at street markets keep rising, he said.

Nizar took this photo on Saturday of a street store near the Rafah border post where humanitarian supplies were being resold. “Everything you see here is mostly help,” Nizar said, adding that most people cannot afford the products available on the shelves.

He explained that some people sell aid when they have more than they need. It is more difficult for people who have no connection to humanitarian organizations or shelters to get help, he added.

“It’s tiring and disgusting,” Nizar said.

Whenever they can, the adults in her family set aside extra food for the children. Children also visit a tekeyah, as shown in this photo taken by Nizar in late February, where they wait for hours for a container of soup or cereal.

Children in Rafah carry pots and pans to charity kitchens like this one to bring food back to their families.

On Saturday, with no other food available, the whole family ate their daily meal at tekeyah.

For the three families, sharing limited food among so many people is a challenge. Amany, whose family of seven lives in an apartment with 23 others, said life nearby was chaotic.

“People start criticizing each other and tracking everything, trying to hide things for fear of missing out,” she said. “Some people sneak out in the middle of the night to eat everything before anyone notices.”

Makeshift kitchens

At Amany, each morning, everyone takes turns searching the streets for firewood. The work keeps them busy, but it is tiring.

They light a fire in a room where a wall has exploded, giving them a view of the ruined buildings outside.

Amany’s family burns the scraps of wood they find in the streets.

“We have regressed to the era of firewood and smoke,” said Amany, who worked as a school administrator before the war.

Aseel returned to her home in Beit Lahia in January after being displaced five times. Her family’s apartment has no electricity and their refrigerator and stove are empty. But unlike many other Gazans, his family still has access to a water tank supplied by a municipal source.

Now they cook outside, lighting wood fires to make tea and boil water for drinking and washing.

“It was our garden, it was full of olive trees where our whole family gathered,” Aseel said. “But now everything has been swept away.”