Ghost of famine haunts Gaza, families forced to survive on bread alone

In the north of Gaza where Palestinians have been hit hardest by hunger, residents say acute shortages of vegetables, fruit and meat mean they are surviving on bread alone.

Food that can be found in the market is being sold at exorbitant prices, they said: a kilo of green peppers, which cost about a dollar before the war, was priced at nearly $90. Traders demanded $70 for just a kilogram of onions.

"We are being starved, the world has forgotten about us," said Um Mohammed, a mother of six in Gaza City.

She has remained there throughout more than eight months of Israeli bombardments. But she and her family have several times left their home for designated shelters in UN schools.

"Except for the flour, bread, we have nothing else, we don't have anything to eat it with, so we eat bread only," she said.

The flow of UN aid in the devastated Palestinian territory has been heavily squeezed since the start of Israeli attacks in Rafah in south Gaza, the key gateway into the enclave from Egypt. Israel is coming under mounting global pressure to ease the crisis as humanitarian agencies warn of looming famine.

"A significant proportion of Gaza's population is now facing catastrophic hunger and famine-like conditions," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday.

Tedros said more than 8,000 children under five in Gaza had been diagnosed with and treated for acute malnutrition, including 1,600 children with severe acute malnutrition.

Humanitarian tragedy

The health ministry in Gaza said on Friday that 27 children had died of malnutrition in the enclave since the start of the war last October.

"A humanitarian tragedy is hitting northern Gaza and the ghost of famine is looming in the air," the ministry said.

On Friday, Gaza's Chamber of Commerce issued an urgent appeal to the international community to pressure Israel to allow the entry of urgently needed aid.

"In addition to the shortage of food, water and medicine, northern Gaza suffers from a severe shortage of many necessities of life, including public and personal hygiene materials," it said in a statement.

"With the lack of fuel and electricity, and the lack of health care services, hospitals have gone out of service, and a destruction of all public and private facilities has occurred."