Seven mouths, one meal: Feeding a family through Gaza’s food crisis

Families across Gaza struggle to secure food as community kitchens operate irregularly, prices rise and humanitarian aid remains limited and unpredictable.

Mervat Radwan, with her father and her sister Sanaa, now care for Nayef, Habib and Ubay, who lost their parents in Israel's genocidal war on Gaza [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

Gaza City — Whenever Mervat Radwan hears the community kitchen in her displacement camp will serve lunch that day, she breathes a sigh of relief.

She takes a cooking pot and walks to the community kitchen with her nephew, six-year-old Ubay.

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The meal is rarely enough for the seven people in her household, so she has to supplement it with whatever else she can find. A can of tuna, beans or peas from an aid parcel can help make the meal stretch further.

“Sometimes they give us a cooked meal, but it isn’t enough for seven people, so I try to find something besides it,” she told Al Jazeera.

Community kitchens are a vital source of food for families with little or no income in Gaza, but their operations have fluctuated sharply in recent months.

The kitchen near Radwan’s displacement site was closed for almost two months before resuming services for just two days a week.

Daily production in Gaza fell from about 1.5 million meals via 165 kitchens in mid-March to 698,000 served by 102 kitchens by July, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Community kitchens across the Gaza Strip have seen their operations fluctuate, leaving families with fewer and less reliable sources of cooked meals [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

This substantial reduction in the number of community kitchens operating in the Gaza Strip and the meals they serve has been attributed to severe funding shortages and rising operational costs, with charities facing difficulties securing sufficient food or cooking supplies.

Tinned food and charity

Radwan, 45, became the guardian of her three nephews when an Israeli air attack in northern Gaza on October 18, 2024, killed her 38-year-old brother Mohammad and his wife, Anwar, 33, and their one-year-old son, Yosuf.

Their three other children survived, but Nayef, now 14 years old, had shrapnel lodged in his head; Habib, 11, suffered burns to his body, while Ubay, who is now aged four, had also sustained severe burns.

For the past nine months, they have lived in a tent in Deir el-Balah with Radwan, her 70-year-old father, and her 40-year-old sister, Sanaa.

None of the carers has a regular source of income, so they are reliant on aid and charity to make it through to the next day.

The children have been left psychologically scarred by the loss of their parents, and their frail state is compounded by the family’s inability to source the basic necessities for existence, including food.

“It’s not just about taking them in; there is a lot of responsibility … food, drink, expenses, everything they need,” Radwan said.

When food is scarce, the adults skip meals so the children have enough to eat.

“My elderly father won’t eat until he knows his grandchildren have had enough … Maybe this is the most we can do in these difficult circumstances,” Radwan said.

Fresh vegetables are increasingly difficult for Mervat Radwan to afford, but she tries to include them in the children’s meals to keep their diet varied [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

Meat is an unaffordable luxury, and even fresh vegetables are difficult to find due to their scarcity and high costs. Some organisations operating in Gaza occasionally distribute vegetables, but their supply is sporadic.

For little Habib, his recovery relies on the food he eats, with a doctor telling Radwan that he must drink water frequently and eat foods with high water content, such as cucumbers, regularly.

But 1kg of cucumbers costs about 15 shekels ($4.50) and tomatoes cost 10 to 12 shekels ($3-3.60), prices the family can barely afford.

“If Ubay wants cucumbers, and the children like cucumbers, I buy three cucumbers, that’s it,” she says.

The World Food Programme said in July that even when there was food in markets, many households in Gaza struggled to source fresh vegetables, fruit and protein due to high prices.

About 77 percent of households in Gaza reported difficulties in this area, because their limited incomes were not enough to secure these costly staples.

The family’s limited diet is now affecting the children’s health. Habib has been suffering from kidney stones for about a year, which doctors said is due to his diet that is high in salt and almost completely based on canned goods.

Changing Habib’s diet is difficult when fresh food items are expensive and aid supplies, which the family relies on, consist mostly of tins of food.

For families like the Radwans, food assistance from charities helps them live another day, but a lack of diversity in their diets is costing them their health.

由于社区厨房运作不规律、物价上涨，以及人道主义援助仍然有限且难以预测，加沙各地的家庭难以获得食物。

梅尔瓦特·拉德万和她的父亲以及妹妹萨娜现在照顾着纳伊夫、哈比卜和乌拜，他们在以色列对加沙的种族灭绝战争中失去了父母。[阿卜杜勒哈基姆·阿布·里亚什/半岛电视台]

加沙城——每当梅尔瓦特·拉德万听说她所在的流离失所者营地的公共厨房当天会供应午餐时，她都会松一口气。

她带着一个锅，和她六岁的侄子乌拜一起走到社区厨房。

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她家有七口人，这点饭菜通常不够吃，所以她得想办法补充其他食物。援助包裹里的一罐金枪鱼、豆类或豌豆就能让这顿饭吃得更久一些。

“有时候他们会给我们做一顿热腾腾的饭菜，但不够七个人吃，所以我尽量找点别的吃的，”她告诉半岛电视台。

社区厨房是加沙收入微薄或没有收入的家庭的重要食物来源，但近几个月来，它们的运营情况波动很大。

拉德万流离失所地附近的厨房关闭了近两个月，之后才恢复营业，但每周只营业两天。

据联合国人道主义事务协调厅称，加沙每天的餐食产量从 3 月中旬的 165 个厨房提供的约 150 万份下降到 7 月份的 102 个厨房提供的 69.8 万份。

加沙地带各地的社区厨房运营情况不稳定，导致家庭获得熟食的来源减少且不稳定。[Abdelhakim Abu Riash/半岛电视台]

加沙地带社区厨房数量及其提供的餐食大幅减少，这归因于严重的资金短缺和运营成本上升，慈善机构在获取足够的食物或烹饪用品方面面临困难。

罐头食品和慈善

2024 年 10 月 18 日，以色列空袭加沙北部，导致 45 岁的拉德万的 38 岁哥哥穆罕默德、33 岁的嫂子安瓦尔以及他们一岁的儿子优素福丧生。拉德万因此成为她三个侄子的监护人。

他们的另外三个孩子幸存了下来，但现年 14 岁的纳耶夫头部留有弹片；11 岁的哈比卜身体被烧伤；现年 4 岁的乌拜也遭受了严重的烧伤。

过去九个月里，他们一直和拉德万、她 70 岁的父亲以及她 40 岁的姐姐萨娜一起住在代尔巴拉赫的一个帐篷里。

这些护理人员都没有固定的收入来源，所以他们只能依靠援助和慈善救济才能勉强维持生计。

父母的离世给孩子们留下了心理创伤，而家庭又无力获取包括食物在内的基本生活必需品，这更加剧了他们虚弱的处境。

“这不仅仅是收留他们；还有很多责任……食物、饮料、开销，他们需要的一切，”拉德万说。

食物匮乏时，大人会自己挨饿，以便让孩子们有足够的食物吃。

“我年迈的父亲要等到孙子孙女们吃饱了才肯吃饭……也许在这样艰难的情况下，这是我们所能做的极限了，”拉德万说道。

新鲜蔬菜对梅尔瓦特·拉德万来说越来越难以负担，但她努力在孩子们的饭菜中加入蔬菜，以保持他们饮食的多样性。[阿卜杜勒哈基姆·阿布·里亚什/半岛电视台]

肉类是难以负担的奢侈品，就连新鲜蔬菜也因稀缺和高价而难以获得。一些在加沙开展工作的组织偶尔会分发蔬菜，但供应并不稳定。

对于小哈比卜来说，他的康复取决于他所吃的食物。医生告诉拉德万，他必须经常喝水，并定期食用含水量高的食物，例如黄瓜。

但 1 公斤黄瓜的价格约为 15 谢克尔（4.50 美元），西红柿的价格为 10 至 12 谢克尔（3-3.60 美元），这个价格对于这个家庭来说几乎难以承受。

“如果乌拜想要黄瓜，孩子们也喜欢黄瓜，我就买三根黄瓜，就这么简单，”她说。

世界粮食计划署在7月份表示，即使市场上有食物，由于价格高昂，加沙许多家庭也难以获得新鲜蔬菜、水果和蛋白质。

加沙约 77% 的家庭表示在这一领域面临困难，因为他们有限的收入不足以购买这些昂贵的必需品。

这家人饮食习惯的单一性如今已经影响到孩子们的健康。哈比卜患肾结石已经大约一年了，医生说这是因为他的饮食中盐分含量过高，而且几乎完全以罐头食品为主。

改变哈比卜的饮食习惯很困难，因为新鲜食品价格昂贵，而这个家庭所依赖的援助物资主要由罐头食品组成。

对于像拉德万一家这样的家庭来说，慈善机构提供的食物援助能让他们多活一天，但饮食缺乏多样性正在损害他们的健康。