When most people speak of hunger, they mean something transitory: a rumble in the stomach before lunch, the discomfort of skipping breakfast. In Gaza, hunger is not a passing feeling but forced starvation is a daily reality for over two million people. It is a condition imposed by Israel’s siege, deepened by displacement, and sharpened by war. 

The Israeli occupation does not only kill with strikes and bombs; it kills slowly, through the stomach. It kills through queues, through the erosion of dignity, turning bread into a battlefield and a single lentil into a luxury.

Massacres at food distribution sites in Gaza are happening almost daily. As of July 13, the UN confirmed that 875 Palestinians had been killed while trying to access food, 201 along aid routes and the rest at distribution points. Thousands more have been injured.

The hunger in Gaza is not only about a lack of calories; it is about humiliation.

Khaled Hamdan, a 39-year-old former construction worker, used to live in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City. After October 7, 2023, he was displaced to a tent in the Rimal district, in the west. Now unemployed, he relies on help from relatives living abroad. “Bread is no longer bread,” he says. “It’s a battle.”

In this economy of scarcity, people are forced to make impossible choices. They ration food, skip meals, and scavenge for what they can.

“Our daily meal? Usually just one. A piece of stale bread with a little oil, or falafel. This once-popular dish has become the poor man’s refuge,” he tells TRT World.

He recounts a visit to a flour distribution centre near the border where survival is no longer instinctual but heroic. 

Hunger sneaks into the body, attacking one organ after the other. Blurry vision, often blamed on unsteady cameras, has other causes here. People struggle to see clearly, not just from an illness, but exacerbated by hunger.

“Just a few days ago, I was helping my daughter review her old textbooks so she wouldn’t forget what she’d learned as school has been suspended for two years, but I couldn’t see the words. My eyesight has deteriorated. It's hunger. The deprivation. The occupation is starving us,” Hamdan says.

Hunger in Gaza doesn’t merely waste the body. It dulls the mind, disrupts sleep, and silences the future. In the camps, people walk slowly, their movements heavy, their spirits flattened. There are no plans. No ambitions. Only one question: Where will we eat from?

Even dreams, Hamdan says, are haunted:

“Sometimes I dream of a big meal, a plate full of meat and bread. But I wake up hungrier than before. Sleep is no longer rest; it’s an extension of deprivation.”

His children often ask him for things he can’t provide. “I pretend that they don’t exist in the markets, but they do. I lie because I can’t afford it. And they know I’m lying. I can see it in their eyes.”

The World Food Programme warns that current conditions have made humanitarian operations nearly impossible. The deliberate starvation of civilians as a method of warfare constitutes a war crime.

Prohibitively expensive eggs

People in Gaza do not eat as others eat. Most survive on falafel that was once a symbol of simple pleasure, has become a means of survival. 

Some families attempt to cook sumaqqiya, a traditional stew made with chard, chickpeas, and tahini, but now it is made without meat, and often without tahini.

In other homes, the menu consists of little more than watery soup or canned beans. 

These meals do little to sustain a body, and can even cause long-term harm. But few have the luxury to think long-term. The goal is simple: make it to tomorrow.

Fruit has become fantasy.

A kilogram of figs now costs $40. Grapes: the same. A single watermelon goes for $20. “Banned,” some say, half-jokingly, of produce. 

Eggs are now rare enough to be considered a delicacy. A single egg can cost as much as $7.  “Whoever buys an egg today is buying gold,” one displaced man says, with a bitter laugh.

Food deprivation has created a secondary crisis: dizziness. It is not caused by illness, but by hunger. People stop mid-walk to steady themselves, overtaken by weakness.

Nearly half a million people, approximately 470,000 – 22% of Gaza’s population – are facing the imminent threat of starvation.

‘Lentils are no longer for the poor’

Amina al-Sousi is thirty-two years old. She lost her husband, Musab, in the war, and now lives with her three children in a tent in western Gaza.

“We’ve been living on lentils since the war started. It was the only thing we could buy or get from aid. And now? Lentils have become too expensive,” she tells TRT World.

Even a simple bowl of soup is like a dream. Sometimes I cook sumaqqiya without meat, just to make my children feel like we’re eating something from before the displacement. But the truth? We live on nothing, she adds.

She describes nights of helplessness, watching her children cry for food she can’t give them.

“My children have cried in front of me for days, begging for bread that I couldn’t provide. My heart broke when one of my daughters said, ‘Mom, I don’t want to die hungry.’ My other daughter asks, ‘Why are we starving while the whole world eats normally?’ How can I answer her?”

‘I buy flour every day for 70 shekels’

Mohammed al-Hajjar, 45, a wiry man with sunken eyes who once worked as a farmer in northern Gaza. Now his farm is gone, destroyed in the early weeks of the war. He survives by pushing goods on a small cart, earning just enough to buy flour.

Surrounded by hollow-eyed family members, al-Hajjar tells TRT World, “Every day I buy a small bag of flour for 70 shekels, about $20. That’s not enough for my large family. We have no meat, rice, or even vegetables. We live only on bread. Some days we add falafel if we can afford it. The occupation doesn’t just want to starve us, it wants to turn us into worthless beings who only seek flour to stay alive.”

He adds: “My stomach is never full. Whatever I eat does not give me strength. We eat duqqa (a mixture of wheat and spices) or some rice when the charity kitchens distribute it. When the kitchens stop, we endure miserable days, surviving only on duqqa or canned peas I had stored for emergencies.”

Over time, the body stops coping. Malnutrition has led to the spread of disease. Children, in particular, have become vulnerable. Some have lost a third of their body weight. Stomach infections and respiratory issues are common.

According to multi-agency health data, cases of acute watery diarrhoea among Palestinians have risen by 150%, bloody diarrhoea by 302%, and acute jaundice by 101%, overwhelming Gaza’s already devastated health system.

Al-Hajjar says: “Because of hunger and poor nutrition, two of my children have stomach infections. They suffer day and night. They are skin and bones. If we don’t die from bombs, we will die of hunger. It’s disgusting.” 

Al-Sousi tells the same story: “My youngest won’t stop coughing. The doctor says he needs a balanced diet. Balanced? There’s no milk, no fruit, no protein. Even medicine won’t work when the body has nothing to sustain it. Sometimes I cry silently. Their faces are yellow from anaemia. I hold my head in my hands to quiet my fear.”

This poor “diet”, expired canned goods, protein-free meals, and an absence of fresh food has turned bodies into fragile sites of disease. Respiratory infections spread. Skin diseases. Acute malnutrition.

Waterborne diseases have surged in Gaza, rising by nearly 150% in just three months, as Israel continues to deliberately obstruct the flow of humanitarian aid.

Elsewhere, falafel might be a street snack, and sumaqqiya a festive dish. In Gaza, these foods are memory and resistance. Hunger here is not a misfortune. It is design.

The logic is simple: if a Palestinian spends his day chasing a loaf of bread, he has no time to chase a homeland.