High prices leave Gaza shops bare, people desperate

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - For a mother in the Gaza Strip, it isn't just the air strikes, tank shelling, endless gunfire and the daily death of relatives that is painful. It's also the fear she won't be able feed her children because of soaring prices.

Locked inside the coastal slice of land, just 40 km (24 miles) long and up to 12 km wide, with next to no food getting in each day, 1.5 million people are battling to find enough to keep their families alive.

But with supplies tight and demand ever-increasing, market prices have gone through the roof, making more people dependent on the food aid distributed by the United Nations.

"People go to the markets and they find them almost empty of stocks with prices too high," said Umm Talat, an old woman sheltering in the house of a relative in northern Gaza together with her daughter-in-law and her five children.

"There are no salaries, there is no money to spend."

As an example she reels off the price of tomatoes. Whereas three weeks ago a kg sold for 1.5 shekels (about $0.40), now it costs 7 shekels, a rise of around 400 percent.

Most Gazans have little income as it is, making it impossible to afford such price rises.

Instead, more people need to rely on the basic food aid distributed by the U.N.'s Relief and Works Agency, which has been working with Palestinian refugees for 60 years. More than half of Gaza's population depends on UNRWA's hand-outs.

Umm Nabil Meqdad lives with 11 relatives in a house in Beach refugee camp, outside Gaza city. She has been dependent on UNRWA assistance since her husband died, but tries to supplement the aid with food from the market. She can't afford it anymore.

"I went two days ago to the market but I failed to buy things because the prices are just too high," she said.

"The situation cannot be described in words -- the scene is more telling. It is not just bad, it is more than bad... The children don't know what war is and they need food."

PANIC BUYING

In recent days, Israel has agreed to halt its offensive for three hours each day to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. On Saturday, both sides appeared to be ignoring the truce window, with Israeli airstrikes continuing and Hamas firing rockets.

That only complicates the situation for UNRWA, which suspended its aid operations earlier this week after one of its drivers was killed in the fighting. It was expected to resume full aid distribution on Saturday after Israeli assurances.

But it's not just getting the aid and other goods into Gaza that is the problem, it's distributing it across the entire territory. With several roads and bridges blown up, and buildings destroyed in the tight warren of backstreets inside Gaza city, delivering food is hard.