On tables and desks in schools converted into shelters, wartime street vendors lined a street, selling used clothes, baby formula, canned food, and the odd batch of homemade cookies.
In some cases, entire aid packages — adorned with the flags of donor countries and intended to be distributed free of charge — were sold at prices that few could afford.
Issam Hamouda, 51, was selling canned vegetables and beans from an aid box that his family had received.
“Most of the products found in the markets are labeled ‘Not for sale,’” he said.
Before the war between Israel and Hamas devastated Gaza’s economy, Hamouda was a driving instructor. He now supports his family of eight by reselling part of the food aid they receive every two or three weeks.
In the months since Israel began bombing Gaza and imposing a siege in response to the Hamas-led attack on October 7, Gazans have been forced to flee their homes and jobs. Markets, factories and infrastructure have been bombed and destroyed. Farmland has been burned by airstrikes or occupied by Israeli forces.
In its place, there has emerged a war economy —a survival market focused on food, shelter and money.
Humanitarian aid labeled “Not for Resale” and looted items end up in makeshift markets. People can earn a few dollars a day evacuating displaced people in trucks and donkey carts, while others dig toilets or build tents from plastic and salvaged wood.
Waiting in line is now a full-time job.whether at aid distribution sites, in the few open bakeries or in the handful of ATMs or exchange offices.
The majority of Palestinians in Gaza now face poverty on multiple levels, including limited access to healthcare, education and housingsays a recent report from the World Bank, the European Union and the United Nations.
The impact on Gaza’s economy is one of the largest in recent history, the report states.
The economy is now largely driven by tight supply and desperate demand for aid. Before the war, some 500 trucks carrying humanitarian aid, fuel and commercial goods entered Gaza daily.
After the war began and new Israeli restrictions were imposed, that number fell to 113 per day on average. It had increased modestly in recent months, but now the flow has almost stopped, following Israel’s attack on the city of Rafah and the almost complete closure of two main border crossings.
Ekrami Osama al-Nims, a civil servant and father of seven displaced in southern Gaza, has tried several times to get a bag of flour from aid trucks — despite the risk of being shot by Israeli soldiers, he said — to avoid having to buy it on the black market. But it was never successful. “My salary used to cover a whole month of food and other basic needs,” he said. “Now my salary is not even enough to buy half a bag of flour.”
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