“I can’t buy him milk every day,” my friend Rania told me as she held her firstborn child, Kareem, in her arms. He was barely past his first few weeks of life, and Rania had been desperately searching for a can of baby formula for him, to no avail. She was unable to nurse him herself, because she wasn’t eating enough to produce enough milk.
We were standing in the middle of Nuseirat market in central Gaza, a once-bustling center where essentials were bought and the scent of fresh bread used to fill the air. It has been months since Israel imposed its total siege on Gaza and cut off food aid to the Strip. The market that was once full of lights and small food stalls has now become a collection of bare wooden carts. It’s a place where people with empty stomachs are greeted by empty shelves. And famine is once again haunting us, settling into our daily lives with a heavy silence.
“Sometimes he drinks lentil broth,” Rania murmured while rocking Kareem. I looked at him and saw a hunger in him unfit for this age, and which no mother should have to ever see.
Rania’s face is pale, and the worry in her eyes is apparent. She should be busy dressing her baby, choosing his name, or waiting for his first laugh, but today, she only thinks about how to feed him.
In Gaza today, the question is no longer, “What did your mother cook?” The greater concern is whether there’s any meal at all. We no longer know three meals a day. A single plate of lentils has displaced them. It has become a fixed routine for us at home. About every two days, we prepare a pot, often without any additions — no onions, no oil, no spices. Just something warm to fill the stomach, but not the soul.
If we manage to cook a pot of rice, we consider it a rare treat, as rice has become expensive and scarce in the markets. We no longer eat to feel full, but to keep our bodies going — and even then, sometimes it’s just a thin broth that barely fills the stomach.
Mothers have become skilled at “inventing” food. I saw a neighbor mix a little flour with water and oil to make something like pancakes, frying them, and serving them to her children as a hot meal. Another mother sprinkled some dry thyme on old bread and claimed it was a “tasty sandwich,” just to convince her child that it wasn’t famine food — it was variety.
Food that reminds us of normal days
When I was a child of five, I used to go every day with my father to Nuseirat Market to buy household essentials. My father carried one hundred shekels in his pocket, which was enough to buy vegetables, fruits, bread, and perhaps a simple sweet treat that would bring me joy on the way back. Those hundred shekels used to last us several days.
Today, one hundred shekels barely covers a single meal. Sometimes, they don’t even buy a kilo of rice and a bottle of oil. Eggs, yogurt, and fresh fruits and vegetables have all become memories. No one asks about them because no one really expects them to be there.
A kilo of melon, if available, is sold at a price that doesn’t even fit a whole week’s income. Everything is rare, and whatever is available is sold at many times its normal price. It’s no longer surprising to return home empty-handed, since we’re usually unable to afford the astronomical prices: a kilo of barely-colored tomatoes going for fourteen dollars, pocked cucumbers for ten, onions dry from the inside out for twelve, and canned beef for fifteen. Even small tins of tuna go for ten dollars.
Fake oils and expired canned goods are widespread in the markets, yet people buy them because the alternative is nothing. Even the children have changed — they no longer ask about the type of food, or if there is dessert after lunch. They only ask, “Mama, is there food today?”
I grew up knowing this street as well as I know my own face. I used to run along it with my friends on our way to school, carrying our notebooks and racing to see who would arrive first.
Going down to the market never needed planning. In just five minutes, I could arrange with a friend to take a short walk and eat knafeh from Dahab, the most famous sweet shop in the area. We would then stop by Hamadeh’s to eat ice cream, sharing it while standing at our favorite corner.
The last time I visited Nuseirat market, just a few weeks ago, prices had already reached unreasonable levels. I was already hungry, my body was tired, and my energy was almost gone. Yet I left the house with a small wish inside me: to buy a piece of sweets, no matter its price. I knew sugar was nearly gone, and that a simple piece of chocolate could cost me more than a full meal. But hunger, at times, is not just for the stomach. I was hungry for something to remind me of ordinary days.
After hours of wandering through the market, I longed for something simple to bring joy to myself and my family. I was able to find a plate of baklava, and when I bought it, I thought of my little brother, Abdullah, who is barely ten years old. You wouldn’t know it from the heavy responsibilities he carries on his small shoulders. He’s already started helping us with many things beyond his age, like tidying the house and fetching water.
When the vendor handed me the sweets, I noticed his extreme caution in weighing the plate. He carefully placed the pieces as if every gram was precisely counted, and each piece carried its weight in gold, and it could not afford a mistake or careless generosity.
Despite the plate’s small size, the look on Abdullah’s eyes when he saw it was worth the entire world. We rarely see that kind of joy anymore.
That small plate of sweets was not just food. It was a reminder to us that life, despite everything, still holds sweet moments that are worth waiting for.
Eman Abu Zayed
Eman Abu Zayed is a writer and translator from Gaza.
