'I have no plan B': Gaza's families left to starve under Israeli aid shutdown

After Israel sealed Gaza's boundaries last month, Ibrahim al-Madhoun managed to gather a few tins of food.

"Everyone rushed to the market. We usually go for canned food - beans, tuna, rice, grains - things that last. Cheese and other perishables are too expensive and spoil quickly," the Palestinian father told Middle East Eye.

But that small stockpile ran out two weeks ago.

Now, he feeds his family once a day with manakeesh - a thyme-topped Levantine flatbread.

"Even the manakeesh will soon disappear," said the 46-year-old, who lives with his elderly mother and five children.

"The little wheat flour we have left is running out."

Since Israel sealed Gaza’s boundaries in early March, at least 95 percent of UN and international aid agencies have halted distributions after their warehouses ran dry.

Aid had become a lifeline for nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million residents under heavy Israeli bombardment and blockade since October 2023. 

'We're simply living on the hope that aid will be allowed in soon'

- Ibrahim al-Madhoun, Palestinian father

Even those once financially stable had become reliant on aid, as key items such as wheat flour entered only through humanitarian channels, not commercial trade.

"I had never relied on international aid before the war. I used to work as a taxi driver and provide for my family," Madhoun said. 

"But since the war started and the occupation began closing the borders and imposing restrictions on commercial goods, there are items that merchants can no longer bring in," he explained. 

"Today, with even humanitarian aid halted, international organisations cannot even provide basic necessities like wheat flour."

Invisible malnutrition 

On 1 April, all 25 bakeries supported by the World Food Programme (WFP) across the Gaza Strip shut down due to the lack of wheat flour and fuel.

Today, families are using the last remaining bags of wheat flour they received from the WFP before the aid suspension to bake their bread in primitive, handmade ovens using firewood.

"Most of the time, we're starving but we cannot have more than one meal a day," said Madhoun, a resident of the Jalaa neighbourhood in Gaza City.

"You could say all we eat now is bread with a bit of thyme - just enough to keep us alive, but not healthy."

Last month, he took his youngest son, who is two years old, to a UN clinic that checks children for malnutrition.

There, he said he was shocked to learn that he was severely malnourished. 

"He's not extremely skinny, but the doctors explained that malnutrition isn’t always visible," said Madhoun. 

"His body lacks essential vitamins and proteins, which cannot be found in canned food or bread."

Doctors told Madhoun that the majority of children they examine in their clinics suffer from some form of malnutrition, most of it "invisible."

But he considers himself "lucky" to still have something to feed his children each day, though the supplies he has will not last much longer.

"When the remaining food supplies run out, I have no plan B. We're simply living on the hope that aid will be allowed in soon. This is the only option available."

Collapse of food basket

Israel has enforced a tight blockade on Gaza since 2007, often sealing its borders. But residents had managed to cope, relying on local agriculture to supply basic food - enough to sustain local markets and, when borders briefly opened, even international ones.

Today, over 80 percent of Gaza's croplands are unusable - damaged by Israeli bombardment, flattened, stripped of water and farming infrastructure, or swallowed into newly expanded military “buffer zones”.

As a result, Gaza’s entire food basket has been nearly destroyed.

'We’re talking about the destruction of agricultural wells, infrastructure, and the collapse of Gaza’s entire food basket'

- Israaa Abushaban,  environmental engineer

"In addition to the damage to these farmlands, many agricultural areas have been turned into camps for displaced people," explained Israa Abushaban, an environmental engineer and member of the Water Crisis Management Committee at the Water Authority.

"Perhaps the most notable example is the al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis, which was once a main source for Gaza's food supply," she told MEE. 

The area has been almost completely transformed from farmland into a makeshift displacement camp for those forced out of their homes by Israeli attacks. 

"The presence of these camps has also impacted the main water source in the area, the groundwater aquifer used for farming," Abushaban said. 

"Every camp set up here has eventually led to the digging of cesspits for wastewater disposal. This wastewater would then seep directly into the groundwater aquifer and contaminate it."

The few agricultural lands that remain accessible and functional now yield only a limited supply of vegetables, priced far beyond what most Palestinians in Gaza can afford.

Staples such as tomatoes and cucumbers, which once sold for around three Israeli shekels (less than $1) per kilogram, are now scarce and sold for as much as 35 shekels (about $10).

Other fruits, meanwhile, have vanished entirely from local markets.

"In addition to Al-Mawasi, many other agricultural areas that once formed a significant part of Gaza's food basket have been annexed into the buffer zone, such as those in the eastern and northern parts of Gaza, as well as in Rafah in the south," Abushaaban continued.

“In other words, access to these areas has become completely impossible. We’re talking about the destruction of agricultural wells, infrastructure, and the collapse of Gaza’s entire food basket.”