To Those Who Wonder About Us in Gaza
Ladies and gentlemen around the world, allow us to share with you a glimpse of our daily lives here in Gaza — so you may know how we survive each day under siege and war that have stolen so much from us, yet not our will to endure.
We have not tasted meat or fresh fruit for over four months now. When we cook, we often do so without onions, garlic, or spices — not because we do not wish for flavor, but because these simple things are either gone from our markets or have become too expensive for any of us to afford. We drink tea without sugar and have forgotten the taste of sweets, as a single kilogram of sugar now costs between 80 and 100 US dollars.
We have been without cooking gas for months. So we burn whatever we can find — old clothes, shoes, even parts of our furniture — just to prepare a meal for our families. Fish, once the food of ordinary people, is now only for the wealthy or those who profit from this war; good fish costs up to 60 dollars a kilo.
Most of us rely on charity kitchens for simple meals — lentils, pasta, and dry legumes. Sometimes we mix lentils or beans with flour to make it last longer, because flour alone is precious: a kilo can cost anywhere from 6 to 25 dollars, depending on whether aid trucks are looted or resold before reaching us.
We have reduced our meals to just two a day. We delay breakfast and lunch so that we do not need dinner, and we divide our loaves of bread carefully to make sure everyone gets their small share. Our breakfast is now just a little Gazan duqqa or a pinch of thyme — so simple that our stomachs ache from the sameness and the hunger that never really goes away.
Our faces have changed. Our bodies have grown thin, our elders age faster than they should, and our children suffer from malnutrition and anemia.
This is just a glimpse of how we live each day — a life of waiting, sharing, and holding onto hope that our voices will reach you. We bear this hardship with patience, asking God to reward us for our endurance, and hoping that you will remember us, speak for us, and help lift some of this heavy burden.