Gaza: I Nearly Lost My Life Trying to Get Food for My Family

Ahmad Sbaih 

The Electronic Intifada 

14 August 2025

Thousands of Palestinians walk along al-Rashid Street carrying bags of flour after aid trucks entered northern Gaza via Zikim crossing near northern Gaza City on 17 June. Yousef ZaanounActiveStills

In Gaza, hunger has become a daily certainty, just like the airstrikes and the screams that follow.

Hunger is not new to Gaza, but the scale and intensity of it now is unlike anything we have endured before.

Despite the ceasefire, Israel cut off the entry of humanitarian aid in early March, and since late May only a limited number of aid trucks have been permitted entry. Those that do arrive often carry far too little to meet the needs of Gaza’s population of more than two million people.

Most families have scraped by on just one simple meal each day. My family has survived on lentil soup as our only meal each day since June.

During this time, my five family members and I managed to buy a single kilogram of flour each week, just enough to keep our bodies moving, barely surviving from one week to the next.

Our only meal was in the afternoon, and until then, I struggled to push through the day. I studied, worked, ran errands and did everything I needed to do before I ate.

Once I’ve had that one meal, all I want is to lie down and let my body rest without the ache of hunger. It’s the only time of day I feel something close to relief.

Search for sweetness

But even in hunger, there are moments when one tries to hold on to something human while one can, a small gesture, a tiny joy, especially for a loved one.

In June, I wandered through the market, desperate to find something sweet for my little sister. She had been craving something sweet for weeks.

I searched stall after stall, but the shelves were mostly empty, a few basic goods, no candy or fruit.

Just when I was about to give up, I spotted a small display of grapes.

They looked tiny and underripe, barely clinging to the stem. Yet they cost an outrageous $15.

I hesitated, frustrated by the absurdity, but my sister’s joy was worth more than the cost.

That small kindness felt like a victory at the time.

But it didn’t last.

Since the start of July, even that lifeline has vanished when the market became completely empty, which has resulted in mass starvation. Food has become a dream here in Gaza.

I wake up in the morning with that familiar, empty feeling in my stomach. I lie still because moving costs energy I don’t have.

But I still must get up early to wait in line for water.

One might stand there for hours, just waiting for one’s turn.

Under the burning sun, with a pale, tired body and a pounding headache, I can barely stay on my feet, let alone drag the heavy water jugs back home afterward.

I feel like my body is close to giving up.

No one can keep up with this routine while starving and mentally exhausted.

Water used to be something we’d never worry about because it was always accessible.

Now, every time I return from the water queues, I’m not just physically drained. I feel like my life has become so reduced, so unimportant, that it revolves around the struggle to secure this most basic human right.

Stripped of dignity

Hunger doesn’t only drain the body, it also drains our spirits and imaginations. There is no honor in hunger; it strips people of their dignity in quiet, painful ways.

It crushes me to see the eyes of children sitting idly in the streets, with no energy to run or play, just sitting with their friends, trading stories about the first thing they would like to eat or drink when the war is over.

I hear the simplest wishes: Coke, chips, noodles. They don’t have the luxury to dream big.

They don’t even think of chicken or meat.

At night, we hear children crying for their parents, too hungry to sleep.

And then, almost every night, the same whispered lie: “Don’t worry, no one dies out of hunger!”

In Gaza today, people no longer dream of peace or a return to normal life. We’ve stopped imagining such distant hopes.

Instead, we find ourselves wishing we could go back just a few months. It was still war, the skies still roared with drones and bombs, but at least there was food.

At least we could feed our children, even if it was just once or twice a day.

A desperate undertaking

We’ve reached a new kind of despair.

Now I have two bad options: either my family and I suffer from starvation, or I can risk my life while waiting to secure food from the few aid trucks that are allowed into Gaza.

My family was against the idea of my going to the aid trucks. My uncle Hani was killed in last year’s famine while waiting for these trucks.

After his death, no one from our family is allowed to go.

But I was determined. We have nothing at home, nothing to buy in the markets.

I took a bag and sneaked out of the house.

The road to Zikim crossing, the entry point for aid trucks in northern Gaza, was long. But I kept thinking of all the joyous possibilities of bringing back some flour, rice, sugar and canned food.

I knew my family would be furious that I went behind their back, but I hoped to come back with proof that I was right.

I arrived at Zikim that grim day in mid-July with an enormous crowd of people with the same hope.

It was my first time there. My heart was pounding. I didn’t feel my legs from the stress.

I sat for hours waiting for the aid trucks. All I was thinking about at the time was food. Suddenly, heavy gunfire began.

I followed everyone’s lead and lay flat on my stomach.

I looked around in anticipation of frightened faces, but everyone was smiling. I was shocked.

“That is how you know the trucks are coming right now,” the man lying next to me explained.

I thought to myself that we are the first humans who sometimes feel happy when bullets are fired in our direction.

The aid trucks started to approach. I ran toward one of them and managed to climb to the top of the moving vehicle.

I am not an athlete. But at just 22 years old, I joined with other young men in a super-human surge of adrenaline and desperation to secure food for our families. Even so, suffocation and exhaustion quickly threatened to overwhelm me.

As I was searching for something to carry, I heard the sounds of people’s bodies crushed under the truck’s tires.

My stomach turned, but my hunger was greater than my horror. I began to question the meaning of life.

Even at that moment, I found myself fighting to find anything – because in Gaza, fear is a luxury hunger does not allow.

I found a 25-kilogram sack of flour. I carried it and put it on my shoulder. I thought it was time to go home, but it wasn’t easy.

The truck was surrounded by what seemed like thousands of people and hundreds on top of it with no means to escape the still-moving vehicle.

With an empty stomach, a weak body, a 25-kilogram sack of flour and people pushing around me for some desperately needed space, I couldn’t stand.

I fell from the truck. I landed on my back and no longer had the sack of flour.

People didn’t hear my screams while they were stepping on me, except for one man who saved my life and pulled me up from the ground.

But he walked away quickly with no chance for me to extend my gratitude.

Shame and relief

As soon as I got up, I went home. Never again will I step foot in this place. Part of me died that day: my dignity, my humanity.

I could barely walk home and felt shame at the thought of facing my family.

I arrived home all dusty, flour on my clothes. They all knew that I went.

My mother hugged me in relief that I returned alive, saying that is all she ever cares about.

The moment her arms wrapped around me, I broke down inside.

The tears refused to fall, held back by shame, by relief and by the exhaustion of having no strength left to cry.

As for my father, he said: “I really hope that you learned your lesson. Never again, okay?”

I nodded and went straight to my bed to rest. All I could think about is my past memories to remember I was once human, with free will.

In Gaza, survival isn’t about holding on to what you have. It’s to face loss every day and still refuse to give up.

Ahmad Sbaih is a writer based in Gaza.

source https://panafricannews.blogspot.com/2025/08/gaza-i-nearly-lost-my-life-trying-to.html