A panel of global hunger experts warned this week that the Gaza Strip is on the brink of famine, but for many Gazans it feels as if famine is already here.
“I can say for sure that our stomachs are rotting,” said Eman Abu Jarjoum, 23, whose family is surviving on tinned peas and beans in north Gaza.
About half a million people in the region face starvation, experts said in a report released Tuesday, though they stopped short of declaring a famine, which depends on a range of criteria being met.
But in Gaza, a place devastated by nearly nine months of war between Israel and Hamas, it may seem like a distinction that makes no difference.
“We are living in greater hunger than ever before,” Abu Jarjoum said.
Every day brings new struggles to find food: Fresh vegetables are in short supply, meat even scarcer, and in food markets that are still open, shortages have caused prices to skyrocket, including for staples like flour and rice.
Iyad Alsapti, a 30-year-old father of six who lives in Gaza City, said he had to wait in line for three hours the last time he bought a bag of flour nearly two months ago. Now, he said, a single bell pepper costs more than $2.
“Who on earth could afford that?” he asked.
Alsapti said one of his daughters asked for eggs but couldn't find any. “I just told her, 'I really wish I could give you some eggs,'” he said.
Tuesday's report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) warned of a high risk of famine but noted that the amount of food arriving in north Gaza has increased in recent months, a change that comes at the same time that Israel, under intense international pressure, has reopened its border crossings to let in more aid.
The IPC designation of famine depends on a combination of factors, including the proportion of households facing extreme food insecurity, the proportion of children who are acutely malnourished, and the number of deaths due to hunger and malnutrition.
But many people may die before all the criteria are met.
Since it was developed in 2004, the IPC criteria have only been used to identify two famines: in Somalia in 2011 and South Sudan in 2017. In Somalia, more than 100,000 people died before a famine was officially declared.
Health officials in Gaza reported that 34 people had died from malnutrition as of Sunday, most of them children.
“Before there were some simple things, but now there's almost nothing,” Abu Jarjoum said.
Fighting in the Gaza Strip is currently focused mainly in the south, but food shortages are reported throughout the strip.
Finding food is not as difficult as cooking it in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, where Nizar Hamad, 30, is taking shelter in a tent with his family.
“The biggest suffering is food preparation itself as there is no gas for cooking,” he said.
Firewood is hard to find and expensive, but Hamad said bread, flour, pasta, rice and lentils are relatively cheap locally — two bags of flour can be bought for about $2.60 — but chicken, beef, fruits and vegetables are a different story.
“The problem now is lack of cash, jobs and income,” Hamad said.
Alsapti said bread has become more available in the north since bakeries in Gaza City reopened. His family mainly eats bread with za'atar, an herb mix. “It's a great help to us that the bakeries have reopened,” he said.
But Alsapti worries that the bakery will soon run out of fuel.
“I really hope they stay open,” he said.