Food prices soar in Gaza as total aid blockade enters eighth week, warns ActionAid

Food prices in Gaza have surged to catastrophic levels amid a continued total blockade on humanitarian aid, reported ActionAid.

For more than eight weeks, Israeli Occupation authorities have prevented food, medicine and other essentials from entering the Territory, triggering severe shortages and forcing families into deepening hunger and deprivation.

According to ActionAid staff and local partners, staple items such as meat, eggs, dairy and fruit have vanished from market shelves. The few remaining goods are being sold at extreme prices, with flour reportedly reaching $300 per bag in Deir Al-Balah and as much as $500 in northern Gaza.

“Most people are now surviving on a single meal per day, predominantly consisting of pasta, rice or canned food,” ActionAid said in a statement. “The scarcity of food and lack of diversity in people’s diets is having a detrimental impact: more than 3,700 children were newly admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition in March, an 80% rise on the previous month, according to UNOCHA.”

Moreover, at Al-Awda Hospital, which is supported by ActionAid’s local partner, staff is increasingly seeing pregnant and nursing mothers suffering from moderate to severe malnutrition, with most newborns now arriving underweight.

READ: WFP warns of deaths from hunger as Israel persists in blocking aid

Riham Jafari, Advocacy and Communications Coordinator at ActionAid Palestine, said: “We are running out of ways to sound the alarm as the consequences of the Israeli authorities’ appalling and outrageously illegal aid blockade become more and more apparent. People are already struggling to find anything at all to eat; mass starvation is on the horizon. This is a completely avoidable and entirely man-made crisis that is deepening by the day.”

She added, “What is the world waiting for? By the time a full-blown famine is officially declared in Gaza, it will already be far, far too late. It’s time to act now. Words are not enough: world leaders must take tangible action to put pressure on the Israeli authorities to resume the flow of aid into Gaza and secure a permanent end to the war, immediately.”

Tasneem, a member of the Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO), a coalition of 30 civil society organisations partnering with ActionAid, has described the situation in Gaza as the worst she has witnessed throughout the 18-month-long war, warning that the Territory is now in the grip of a full-scale humanitarian catastrophe.

“For over 50 days, not a single truck carrying food, medicine or humanitarian aid has been allowed to enter,” she said. “This has pushed Gaza into one of the most catastrophic humanitarian crises in recent history. According to the UNOCHA, this is the harshest situation Gaza has faced in more than 18 months, and for us living through it, it’s even worse than words can describe.”

Tasneem reported that families have resorted to grinding dried pasta to make flour, using it to bake meagre pieces of bread in the absence of any other food. All bakeries in Gaza have ceased operations due to the total lack of flour. Meat, milk, eggs, vegetables and fresh food have entirely disappeared.

Calling on the global community to take urgent action, she demanded, “We are calling on the international community—on every government, every humanitarian actor and every person who still believes in human rights—to act. We demand an immediate ceasefire. We demand that the [Israeli] Occupation open all Crossings and allow the entry of life-saving humanitarian aid—now.”

“By continuing to refuse any aid into Gaza, the Israeli authorities are acting in flagrant breach of international humanitarian law, as well as in breach of a World Court order to allow life-saving assistance in. Let us be clear: this is a starvation campaign and amounts to collective punishment of the population in Gaza. Food must never be used as a weapon of war. “

READ: Israel’s actions in Gaza undermine legality and humanity, Russia tells ICJ