The Last Thing We Had in Gaza Was Flour. Now Even That Is Gone.

Part of the Series

Struggle and Solidarity: Writing Toward Palestinian Liberation

All we have left is water — and even clean drinking water is becoming nearly impossible to find. Sometimes I wonder: What if they cut that off too? Will I survive just three days? It seems that my death won’t come from an Israeli missile or a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s bullet — it will come from hunger. Slow. Silent. Cruel. And I ask myself: How can a world so devoid of humanity watch such an inhuman war — where children die from starvation — and still do nothing? And when aid finally arrives, it carries not bread, but bullets — like the so-called U.S.-Israeli aid, that feeds war, not life!

On the morning of July 21, my uncle called my mother, his voice trembling. His 22-year-old daughter had just collapsed to the floor. He rushed to her in panic and tried to wake her for over 30 minutes to no avail. Her body was cold.

He called for an ambulance, but the operator said none were available. The relentless airstrikes and critical shortage of emergency services left my uncle and his daughter on their own. So, he and his son carried her with their bare hands, running to what is still called Al-Shifa Hospital. But it’s not a hospital anymore — just tents, stripped of supplies, medicine, and hope.

The nurses successfully revived her. They attempted to draw blood, but starvation and severe malnutrition made it difficult, as they had severely weakened her body. After several failed attempts, they managed to extract just one drop. Then they measured her blood pressure — and the result was shocking: 44. A foreign medical staff member standing nearby couldn’t believe she was still alive.

He said, stunned, “Thank God she didn’t die.”

In Gaza, staying alive is no longer ordinary.

After the medical tests came out, the doctors told my uncle that the cause was malnutrition — and because his daughter hadn’t eaten breakfast, there were no sugars in her body, nothing to help her move or give her any energy.

For more than a year and a half, we have not eaten like normal human beings. Deprived of meat, vegetables, fruits — anything that could benefit us, we cannot consume! But despite all this, we as a people only asked for flour! We forgot the pleasure of food and what fruit means! And all we asked for was flour to keep us alive.

But despite all this, obtaining flour has become like chasing death itself. And yet, my people chase death!

The flour crisis reached its peak around March 2025 — especially because anyone who managed to get flour was targeted directly by the U.S. military and the Israeli occupation forces.

Then suddenly, starting on July 17, 2025, flour completely disappeared. Its only source had been humanitarian aid, and many who tried to receive it died. Some of those who managed to get a little flour tried selling it in the markets at high prices — not out of greed, but to feed their families, as there are no jobs, no incomes, and no cash flows left in this country.

That’s exactly what the Israeli occupation intended: to manufacture a cash crisis — because every type of food requires money, and we have none.

Imagine this: death comes with the aid. No cash to buy flour. And no room to even sell what remains!

For seven straight days, we have eaten nothing but lentil soup. Just imagine — seven days, and we still don’t know how much longer we’ll survive on it. My father now feels dizzy every single day. I’m losing weight rapidly — I lost four kilograms in just one week. And I’m scared the truce will take even longer … and we’ll break even further.

People are collapsing in the streets — children, young people, the elderly. Everyone is weak. Even foreign aid workers are joining the lines for aid distribution. And all are waiting, desperately, for a truce — even a temporary one — just to eat. Sadly, our only hope now is food … even if we can eat only for a month.

Where is humanity? How did we get here? How have we reached the point where we crave food so desperately, we are willing to come under fire to obtain it?

On July 19, my father’s cousin Tawfiq, a biomedical engineer, called him and said, “There’s nothing left to eat in my house. My children are hungry and exhausted.”

My father replied, “Same here.”

Now, both the rich and the poor are equal — mutually starving. Money means nothing. And no one outside of Gaza understands the truth: There is no food at all.

We have only one option left — to walk the road of death they call “aid.”

Tragically, one of those who walked the road of death was Salem Abu Samra — the brother of my friend’s husband. On July 19, he went out at night, desperately trying to get flour from the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. But he never returned alive — instead, he came back wrapped in a shroud.

My friend told me, “He had no choice. He had six hungry children.” He was shot dead — directly targeted — while simply trying to secure a piece of bread to feed his children.

Now, his children are orphans and starving, carrying the unbearable pain of losing a father who died fighting to keep them alive. How do they bear such a loss? How can a child comprehend that their father was killed while trying to feed them?

This is the tragedy of an entire people!

My father tells us, “There’s nothing I can truly do … but whatever I can, I will do for you.”

I drift in his words, swallowed by a silence heavier than sorrow. How did the world become so empty of compassion? Humanity — the very essence of life — has vanished. Without it, what are we?

How does any heart, even the coldest, endure the image of children wasting away for lack of food?

Family, friendship, love — all crumble when empathy dies.

I have a cat named Kitty. There hasn’t been food for her in ages. I used to break my bread in half, sharing it with her — knowing it wasn’t enough, but unable to watch her hunger in silence.

That single loaf — torn between me and her — became a symbol of survival and heartbreak.

Now, I can no longer feed her. I have nothing left — not for her, not for me.

All I have left is prayer. I whisper into the void, begging that something — anything — will come her way.

I plead with the conscience of this world: Wake up. Listen to the 109 aid organizations pleading with the world to “open all land crossings; restore the full flow of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items, and fuel through a principled, U.N.-led mechanism; end the siege, and agree to a cease-fire now.”

This is not about politics. This is a war on humanity itself. And every human soul is losing!