Ghost of famine knocks on
Gaza’s doors once again

The air in Gaza is thick with a familiar, suffocating dread. It is not just the sound of drones or the sight of rubble that haunts the streets today; it is the tightening grip on daily life, the missing flour, the soaring prices, and the return of a fear people thought they had survived.

As border crossings remain throttled and international aid organizations, including the World Food Program, warn of rapidly dwindling supplies, the ghost of famine is no longer a distant memory. It is edging closer again.

For those who survived the previous waves of starvation, the current shortage and skyrocketing prices feel like a recurring nightmare. The memory of the first famine is not distant history; it is a raw, unhealed wound.

Horror returns

Mahmoud Haniya, a displaced father of two from Al-Shati refugee camp, knows this terror intimately. Having lost his home and narrowly survived both the first and second waves of severe famine in northern Gaza, the word “famine” triggers a visceral reaction.

“The first image that comes to my mind is the days of the ‘death trucks’ at the Zikim checkpoint, and the parachutes when they first started dropping at the beginning of the famine,” Haniya says. “The feeling… sheer horror and intense panic, fear for your life, and the fear of dying from hunger.”

When asked if he fears being forced to experience the same hunger again, his answer is immediate. “Of course. Up until now, we are living in constant instability; life hasn’t opened up properly, and we haven’t seen true relief. The bare minimum, bread, is not safely or reliably available. Over the past three years up until today, there has been no secure provision of bread that is easy to buy or access.”

The memory most deeply etched in his heart is not just hunger, but the chaos of trying to survive it. “At night, in my dreams while I am asleep, the worst nightmares that come to me are about those airdrop days when I used to get trapped under people’s feet because of the massive crowds rushing toward the drop zone of the parachutes from the planes. I reached the point of seeing death with my own eyes beneath their feet, arriving at the absolute brink of death, until someone, by Allah’s mercy, pulled me out alive from under the stampede.”

In those darkest days, survival meant solidarity. Haniya recalls sharing whatever little he could find. “I used to share. Whenever Allah blessed us and we managed to get something from the trucks or the parachutes, I would share it with women who didn’t have strong men to bring them food, like widows, women whose husbands were deported, wives of detainees, or the injured, as a form of vital social solidarity.”

Today, he says, the sense of security remains non-existent. Food is visible in markets, but it is a cruel illusion for most. “Actually, food has not become available! The cheapest items in vegetables, fruits, and meats now cost three to seven times their normal price! There is simply no purchasing power left at all,” he explains.

“Before the war, you could buy food for three, four, or five cooked meals a week and cook every day. Today, you cannot even afford to cook once every two weeks. Even the community kitchens fail you; they aren’t enough… You are forced to stand in a long line just to buy bread and a single tin of cheese to stuff inside and call it a day. As for buying meat, vegetables, or fruit, it is extremely expensive in Gaza.”

Eerily familiar atmosphere

In central Gaza, Maryam Zaqout, a schoolteacher living with her seven-member family, sees the same ominous signs. She describes the atmosphere as “eerily identical” to the days preceding the last acute famine. Essential items are vanishing from shelves overnight, replaced by a frantic, collective anxiety.

“The fear of returning to total hunger grows, especially the dread of losing flour or being forced to buy a single bag for 100 shekels,” Zaqout says. For a family of seven that has already exhausted its financial resources, such prices are unbearable.

The family has reverted to a survivalist calculus, rationing their remaining canned goods and legumes under a singular, agonizing principle: “What is available today might not be found tomorrow.”

As a teacher, Zaqout’s fears extend beyond her own home. Every morning, she walks into a classroom that serves as a mirror to the crisis. “What scares me most is seeing my students arriving having eaten nothing at all, their faces pale, their small bodies frail, showing clear signs of severe hunger and physical exhaustion.”

The tragedy of Gaza’s looming famine is that it is happening in a place with no safety net. With no agricultural crops left and no strategic reserves, the life of every resident is suspended on the opening or closing of a border gate.

“Simply thinking about the return of famine is exhausting and soul-crushing,” Zaqout says. “Our entire existence is suspended on the opening or closing of a border gate.”

As the international community debates logistics and corridors, the people of Gaza are watching the dust settle on empty flour sacks. For Mahmoud, Maryam, and millions like them, the wait for aid is not just a matter of policy, it is a race against a hunger that threatens to consume what remains of their strength.

-Bashaer Abu Muammar is a Gaza-based journalist. She contributed this article to the Palestinian Information Center.