We Often Return Home From Gaza Markets Empty-Handed — If We Return at All

Part of the Series

Struggle and Solidarity: Writing Toward Palestinian Liberation

In Gaza, survival has been redefined. It is no longer just about fleeing bombs — it is about keeping ourselves from dying of hunger. The echoing question — “Where do we go?” — has now been compounded by another, more desperate one: “What can we eat so we don’t collapse?”

Gaza was once a self-sufficient agricultural society. More than that, it also exported citrus, strawberries, oranges, lemons, olives, and even flowers to the West. Today, it is corralled not only by siege and death, but by hunger and devastation.

On July 26, I ventured out to Al-Nuseirat market to secure a meal. I walked four hours under the blazing sun, but the “market” was nothing more than two war-battered streets with a few makeshift stalls and hundreds of shops bearing the same lifeless sign: “Closed.”

I searched from one stall to the next for something edible and reasonably priced. But the piercing cries nearby shattered the last sliver of hope I was holding onto.

A horse cart rolled by, overflowing with the bodies of martyrs, gunned down at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid access point. Grieving relatives ran alongside, rushing them to Al-Awda Hospital, still hoping their loved ones might be clinging to life.

On the opposite side of the street stood a young, dust-covered man clutching a bag filled with a few canned goods — his entire gain for the day. Bystanders gathered around him, asking, “Do you want to sell them?”

He tightened his grip on the bag, groaned, quickened his pace, and replied, “No, of course not.”

A few withered vegetables sat atop one or two stalls. People stopped, asked about prices, then laughed — bitterly, ironically — before walking away in stunned silence.

I, too, stood at one of the stalls, frozen in disbelief at the soaring prices:

A kilo of half-rotten tomatoes: $40.

A kilo of onions: $23.

A kilo of cucumbers: $30.

A kilo of eggplants: $13.

A kilo of peppers: $34.

A kilo of bell peppers: $72.50.

A kilo of okra: $101.50.

“Why are the prices so ridiculously high?” I asked the vendor.

“Our farmlands in eastern Al-Qarara were bulldozed. Our trees uprooted. Our only sources of livelihood — severed,” he replied. “People think we’re the problem — that we’re complicit in this genocide. But this is just the final scene in a long cascade of atrocities that brought us here.”

Another vendor nearby interrupted, adding, “The vegetables we’re selling today at these high prices were once given away for free before the genocide — because they had started to rot. But even these withered few now cost us our lives. We could be shot dead just picking them.”

Like most people in Gaza, I walked away empty-handed.

But before I left, I asked if anyone was truly able to afford these prices.

“Weeks go by without selling a single vegetable,” one vendor replied.

I kept walking — until I reached a crowd stampeding toward a flour stall. People fought desperately to get just one kilo. I pushed through and finally caught the seller’s attention.

A kilo of flour was being sold for 80 shekels — about $23 in U.S. dollars — the same price that used to buy an entire sack before the war. I offered the seller the full amount — but in smaller bills.

To my shock, he refused. “These are worn-out, torn bills,” he told me. “No vendor will accept them.”

Before I left home that morning, my father had given me money. But the edge of a bill tore as he pulled it from the drawer. I had gone earlier to a man who fixes torn currency, but he refused. “You need the small separated piece to repair it,” he told me.

I offered to pay for the flour via bank transfer. The vendor agreed — but only if I paid 160 shekels instead (around $46), citing commission fees that can reach $40–$50. Cash is nearly nonexistent in Gaza. Money is either half-useless, or it vanishes — spent on survival, slipping through our fingers like sand.

I had no choice but to accept. Flour might be there today — but tomorrow, it might vanish.

Just a few meters ahead, the smell of bread wafted through the air. A young man was selling a single loaf for 15 shekels — nearly $7 — yet no one came.

No buyers.

Most Palestinians in Gaza have no stable income. And if they do, it’s barely enough to buy anything in this economy strangled by war.

Across the street sat a young boy, who should have been in a classroom at that hour, seated at a table instead. His backpack, filled with books, was now just a symbol of a future stolen. He should have been celebrating academic wins with his family, not selling grams of lactose, a sugar substitute, at $150 per kilo.

Many have said lactose can be harmful, but no one can afford to care.

Behind him stood an UNRWA school-turned-shelter.

I approached him.

“How much for a gram of lactose?” I asked.

“Forty-five shekels,” he replied. About $13.

I asked if he accepted bank transfers.

His voice cracked. “No,” he said. “My father used to deal with bank transfers … but he was killed. I need cash now — to support my family.”

I stopped by our friend’s gold shop to say hello — and was stunned to see people lined up to sell their jewelry. They were desperate to convert gold into cash, just to meet the bare demands of existence — even if only temporarily.

I kept wandering the market. One vendor was selling two school backpacks — no longer used for education, but for carrying belongings amid constant displacement.

Another stall had only a few figs. I asked the price, hoping to buy them as a birthday gift for my father. I paid $15 for five figs and surprised him later that day.

I interviewed Abdurrahman Nijm, a local farmer, about the skyrocketing food crisis.

“After two years of this devastating genocide, it’s nearly impossible to plant or harvest anything,” he said. “I have just two dunams of land. The occupation may have started this — but its effects have devastated every part of our lives.”

Nijm explained that Tropsin, a crop insecticide, now costs 5,000 shekels ($1,200), compared to just $10 before the war.

“These conditions have crushed all of us — sellers and buyers alike,” he said.

“Even the vegetables I managed to grow were destroyed by toxic smoke, airstrikes, sewage floods from overcrowded displacement centers. Eventually, my land became a shelter for displaced families with nowhere else to go.”

He paused and added bitterly, “I’ve lost so much. Our survival attempts have failed. It’s not just that vegetables are scarce — so is fuel. Everything in our lives has been on hold since October 7.”

My neighbor, Mohammad Johar, owns a stall at the Al-Nuseirat market.

“I see prices change during the day depending on political announcements — talks of aid, borders, or ceasefires. If a ceasefire seems to collapse, traders immediately raise prices,” Johar said. “Flour prices dropped from 120 to 25 shekels the moment negotiations seemed hopeful.”

“This genocide destroyed everything I built — and everything I dreamed of building,” Johar continued. “My new home, which I moved into just one month before the genocide, was demolished. My future projects — all gone. Now I work only to keep my children alive.”

Parched, I searched for water. I found a small child selling plastic pouches filled with it. He stood with his younger brother under the same scorching sun, the buzz of drones overhead, selling each pouch for the equivalent of 50 U.S. cents.

Suddenly, an airstrike landed nearby.

The earth shook. My vision blurred. My heart pounded. Children’s screams pierced my soul. I will never forget the fear in their eyes.

They grabbed their water and ran, calling for their parents.

It had been a deadly attack on a group of young men chatting beside a cigarette stall. Two were killed. Dozens injured.

Johar witnessed the airstrike, and described the incident as a bloodbath.

In Gaza, stepping outside — from home, or from shelter — means accepting you might never return.

Just like my cousin, Yahya.

He went to the At-Tuffah market in June to buy his little girl a sweet candy. But the airstrike was faster — more brutal, more soul-crushing. It killed him and 12 other civilians.

After the bombing at Al-Nuseirat market, my family panicked. My phone exploded with calls.

I replied, “I’m fine. I survived… by a mere fluke.”

On the way home, I saw a frail child and his father selling firewood, uprooted from their own trees.

One kilo: $2.

Just to scrape by, barely, under astronomical prices.

Another stall displayed beach hats. My heart leapt — a flicker of summer.

Then it sank.

Access to the sea — Gaza’s last escape — is now banned. No sailing.

I passed by a stall selling plants I had never seen before. My sister explained that these purslane plants grow naturally on farmlands — but now, because of starvation, people are cooking them.

A few meters away, a woman argued with a vendor. His stall had lentils for $10, rice for $25, spaghetti for $10, and cooking oil for $25. It looked like humanitarian aid.

The woman tried to barter — an act of resistance against starvation. He refused.

“I’m selling my family’s rations,” he said. “I have no choice. I need cash — I need to buy their medications.”

I was lucky to find a horse-drawn cart to carry me home. After four hours of walking, I returned with nothing but a kilo of flour and five figs. I reached home dizzy, scorched by heatstroke.

That day’s meal was lentils, a quarter loaf of bread, and one pepper.

It’s been nearly two years of genocide. And still, our anguish compounds — layer upon layer of hunger, displacement, fear, and lurid, evolving forms of death.

And yet — it seems that no one cares.

“To secure clean water is to risk your life,” Nijm had told me earlier that day. “To buy a single loaf of bread for your starving children means giving up your last savings — if you have any. To approach an aid distribution point is to gamble with death. And to stand beneath the sky, hoping for an airdrop, is to surrender the last thing we Gazans still cling to: our dignity.”

“We are suffering. We are persecuted. We are being systematically erased. Life here in Gaza is impossible,” he said.

Then he repeated, louder: “Life here in Gaza is impossible. Let food and medicine reach us. Stop the carnage. Let us live.”