Even wild plants scarce as hunger grips northern Gaza

Heat half a tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet, add thinly sliced onions and cook for 2-3 minutes until the mix softens. Add roughly chopped mallow leaves and throw in a pinch of salt and black pepper as seasoning. Finish by squeezing a bit of lemon juice. This is the traditional Palestinian dish Khubeiza.

This is what the people in Gaza used to eat most days before Israel attacked the Palestinian enclave. Now they have replaced mallow leaves with wild plants as food supplies of everything from milk to wheat, vegetables, and spices have run out.

Israel has imposed a blockade on the enclave under the garb of cutting arms supply to Hamas fighters. However, the United Nations’ Famine Review Committee (FRC) has warned that food shortages can lead to a generational catastrophe.

The FRC is tasked with deciding if people in a specific area are facing a famine and should the world come up with a plan to assist them.

In its recent finding, the FRC said the north and middle region of the bombed-out Gaza can face famine as early as mid-March and May.

The humanitarian crisis borne out of Israel’s blockade will extend to southern Gaza by July, it says.

In addition to severely restricting access to essential supplies such as medicine, food, water, and fuel, the Israeli military has devastated Palestinian agricultural lands in northern Gaza, once known as the region's food basket.

The shortage of food has seen people eating wild plants and animal fodder, something unimaginable even for the residents of a region that has been under an Israeli blockade since 2007.

The situation is so bad, people say, that wildflowers are no longer to be easily found as desperate residents have resorted to picking them out to kill their hunger.

A man-made famine

“We started consuming meals made of wild herbs. I have never experienced something like this in my life,” says 43-year-old Dr Khaled Ahmed Qashqash.

“I had only tasted these meals during the war. But, in recent days, wild herbs are hard to come by,” he tells TRT World.

Qashqash is the director of the Al Shaimaa School Shelter Center, situated in the town of Beit Lahia in northern Gaza. His wife, six children, an elderly mother, and a sister who suffers from cancer, have all suffered serious injuries from a bomb that destroyed their home. They have now sought refuge in a school.

Over half of Gaza's 2.5 million people are currently crowded into southern Rafah town, which was previously a town of only 250,000 people, says the UN. However, there are still estimated hundreds of thousands who stayed back in the north.

Before the Israeli attacks began, Gaza saw an average of 500 trucks entering the region daily. The population heavily relied on foreign humanitarian aid, grappling with high unemployment rates and poverty within the enclave.

Between October 7 and February 24, only 90 trucks entered Gaza daily, with 60 carrying food and few reaching the north. In February, the UN and its humanitarian partners planned 24 missions to areas north of Gaza, but only six were successful.

On February 20, the UN's World Food Program halted food deliveries to northern Gaza due to “the prevailing chaos.”

Then on March 5, when the WFP tried to send a 14-truck food convoy to northern Gaza, the Israeli forces denied it entry.

Fewer than 5 percent of all food trucks reached Gaza in late February to mid-March, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Recently, the UNRWA Commissioner-General announced that Israel would not approve UN food convoys to northern Gaza, which “clearly indicates an intentional obstruction of lifesaving assistance during a man-made famine.”

Even before the aid halt, if there was any assistance reaching the north, it was extremely limited and not reaching the majority of the population, according to residents.

“No aid arrives from any relief institutions, and no humanitarian assistance reaches us,” says Samira Abu Sultan, a 60-year-old woman from Gaza.

“I risk my life and go to agricultural lands or orchards to find wild herbs to feed the children. For over two months, I have not eaten a piece of bread, surviving solely on wild herbs, and even rice is not available," she tells TRT World.

More than about herself, Abu Sultan is concerned about her grandchildren who she says have developed various illnesses.

Qashqash says children are suffering the most from the famine.

"We are talking about the deprivation of the most fundamental necessities of life. There is no semblance of childhood in northern Gaza."

As of mid-March, the Palestinian Health Ministry of Gaza has reported 27 deaths of children attributed to malnutrition and dehydration.

An emerging health crisis

The crisis has been exacerbated by a shortage of foodstuff in the market.

According to a survey conducted by the WFP, shop owners in Gaza are facing a significant shortage of basic food items, with 81 percent reporting depletion of their stock.

With supply chains disrupted and many shops damaged, the formal market remains in tatters. As a result, an informal market has emerged in Gaza where canned food is being sold or bartered.

“The canned and dry food items are being sold at very high prices, surpassing the capacity of 95 percent of the remaining population in the area, making them unaffordable,” says Issa Muhammad Saadallah, 48, a journalist from northern Jabalia city.

People can’t find wild herbs anymore, he says. “Like us, animals such as donkeys, horses, and remaining livestock rely on these herbs to survive.”

What has made the situation worse is the Israeli restriction on fishing in the waters off the coastal enclave.

“We sometimes grind corn, wheat, barley, and bran, and consume them as bread," Saadallah tells TRT World.