"A few weeks ago, Soliman Zyad, a young health-care worker in northern Gaza, told me that his family was near starvation. On some days, he and his uncle AbdulKareem walked in search of food from 3 A.M. until the afternoon. "We swore we would not return home without finding flour," Zyad told me. "People were ready to risk their lives for a single sack.""
"The latest food shortage in Gaza began in March, when Israel ended a ceasefire and imposed a blockade on all aid that lasted eleven weeks. After that, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which was backed by Israel and the U.S., began distributing limited amounts of aid; around three thousand Palestinians were killed while seeking food. This month, a United Nations study published in The Lancet reported that more than fifty-four thousand children are malnourished in Gaza."
Widespread food shortages in Gaza have produced near-starvation conditions for many families, with people walking long hours in search of flour and risking their lives for basic supplies. Almost forty percent of the population went days without eating. A blockade and interruptions to aid precipitated limited distributions and deadly competition for food. Tens of thousands of children are malnourished, and prematurity and low birth weight have increased. Severe maternal malnutrition has prevented breastfeeding and contributed to infant illness and death. Daily survival has replaced normal activity for affected households amid soaring food scarcity.
Read at The New Yorker
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