A step-by-step guide on how Gaza's population bake bread
From sourcing flour to building mud ovens and collecting firewood, the reality of Gaza's bread crisis
Note: this was written on March 13th, 2024. Flour is now as scarce as it was a year ago and costs around $500 per 25 kilograms and is nicknamed “white gold” in Gaza.
Flour. Most of us have no connection with this word. It is one of the staples we can easily get at the supermarket any day of the week, any hour of the day, for a reasonable price. Flour. Gaza. Flour has a different meaning in Gaza, where it has become a luxury, a 25 kg sack costing between 2500 to 3000 shekels ($700). While the Israeli occupation is deliberately starving the people in Gaza especially those in Northern Gaza, flour has become a symbol of resistance and survival. Commuting from the North to the South to get flour for your family in Gaza is a deadly high-risk shopping decision. Making the journey to receive a bag of flour when the aid trucks finally make it to the North makes you a direct target of the Israeli occupational army.
Scene one: Bombing Palestinian Bakeries
Schools; Universities; Mosques; Hospitals; Bakeries. All these essential civilian facilities are active targets in this genocide. Purchasing fresh bread daily from the bakery is part of most Palestinian’s daily routine. Palestinian bakers are always the first people up to go to work in the early morning (as early as 5AM) to make sure the rest of us have fresh bread throughout the day from breakfast until dinner. Parents buy khubiz Ikmaj (pita bread) to open and stuff with olive oil and thyme to send with their children to school. When Palestinians have guests over and want to treat them, they rush to the bakeries to buy Taboon bread to soak it in seasonal olive oil and top it with onions, sumac and chicken to make the Palestinian delicacy, Imsakkhan (Musakkhan). On weekends, it is time to rush to the bakeries to get ka’ak al-Quds to stuff with falafel and hummus. Bakeries in Palestine operate on Fridays, during Covid, and even during wars; they are the embodiment of food security for the communities they serve. Palestinian bakers do not leave bread leftover for the next day; when they have bread left at the end of the working day, they will happily give the bread away to the community.
If one bakery in Gaza was bombed, we could have brushed it off as an '“accident” , but bombing bakery after bakery killing Palestinian bakers in cold blood, until only 15 operating bakeries are left in the entirety of the Gaza strip according to the UN reports in January 2024 is a clear war on food security. The queues at the operating bakeries became extremely long and securing bread became a time-consuming errand where people sometimes having to go home empty handed as no loaves are left for them. 2.2 million people lost their bakeries. As the bakeries of Gaza were bombed out of service, in came starvation and famine.
Scene two: The Search for Flour
As bakeries were bombed, people had to bake their own bread, and the continuous search for flour began. With the intentional closures of borders and very little aid and goods trickling into Gaza, the high demand for flour and low supply caused prices to skyrocket. Flour became a luxury at around $700 a bag. If you are a Palestinian living in Gaza and have lost your source of income, and spent the rest during the last six months trying to secure what you can for your family at the inflated prices, you will not have $700 to spend on a bag of flour. You can wait for the aid trucks to come every now and then when the international community remembers that you are living under a genocide and need enough food to stay alive so that the genocide may continue.
The people of Northern Gaza that refused to be forcefully displaced and become refugees again, were cut off from the rest of the world. As no flour was reaching the North, the use of animal feed to bake bread was the only option they had to keep themselves alive during this time. Animal feed is not suitable for human consumption, but the humans of Gaza want to live and they will turn anything into bread to keep their families alive.
People in Gaza were forced to go on long journeys by foot from the North to the Center and to the South to secure flour. Dangerous journeys; where those that take the risk either come back to their families with flour and celebrate by baking fresh bread, or never return, their blood flowing onto the flour that they have just celebrated. To make sure their families got flour regardless whether they made it back to the North alive or not, Palestinians began travelling together in groups and making pacts with each other; if any of them is murdered on the way, the others will take back flour to their families. These are the pacts made by Palestinians; the flour pacts.
Scene three: Building Primitive Ovens
While there is no electricity and very little access to gas for baking bread, Palestinians in Gaza are forced to go back in time to the days of their grandparents and ancestors; baking bread with fire. The knowledge of the older generations and their experience came into use and some began building their primitive ovens from mud, straw, sticks, and cement if they could find any. Others used empty tanks as an oven structure and made some adjustments. Some used a metal Saj. All these ovens need a fire. Bags with small pieces of wood started to be distributed to tents for people to bake their bread. People that were not lucky enough to receive these bags have to resort to gathering their own wood to burn. This a step-by-step video on how ovens in Gaza are made. The video is in Arabic, but the visuals are self-explanatory.
Lots of students helped their families by giving up their school books to be burned as fuel for baking bread. In war, people live day-to-day with short term goals put before long term goals that do not seem attainable at the moment. Today their books are needed to keep the fire going and their families from starving. Let us not forget what these children have done and given up; choosing between their books and bread.
Final Scene: The Flour Massacre
February 29th 2024- When there is news of trucks coming in bringing flour, it is a day of hope for Palestinians in Gaza. They have survived starvation so far, and have another chance to live for a little longer if they can secure a bag of flour and avoid Israeli snipers targeting Palestinians in their most vulnerable moment; hungry, tired after a long journey on foot, or on an animal to get flour for their families. Their only crime was that they wanted to sleep for a few nights without being awakened by the rumbling sounds coming from the stomachs of their hungry children.
Fighting famine is a crime, wanting to survive is a crime. Aid trucks bringing in flour upsets Israeli Occupational Forces, they rush to the location where flour is being distributed. The Palestinians can clearly see the tanks and snipers pointed at them, but they must do what their families are depending on them to do, they must not surrender to starvation. Shots are heard as bodies fall to the ground. Flour is mixed with blood. The blood of heroes. 118 lives taken in cold blood. Over 700 injuries. Dead bodies crushed with tanks crushing them over and over again; killing a Palestinian once is not enough for them. The heroes of the flour massacre may be gone, but their story will remain etched in the hearts of humanity.
Listen to a full analysis on the Gaza Flour Massacre by Warfronts here.
So many elements to this unfolding catastrophe that we here in the west don't get reporting on. So thank you for reporting on this, Lama.
Lama, your words is deep. Flour, something so basic and important. The bombing of bakeries, the hard search for food and the ovens built by hand, it's all a story of a people trying to survive. And those lost at the flour trucks their sacrifice is painful. Thank you for sharing this truth about Gaza.