One day after Israel began halting the entry of all goods and humanitarian assistance into the Gaza Strip, Palestinians there are already feeling the effects of the sweeping measure, with prices of essential goods on the rise.
“It was a complete shock,” Iman Saber, a 24-year-old nurse from northern Gaza, said of Israel’s decision on Sunday to block aid and commercial shipments.
Already, said Ms. Saber, who has been living in a tent with her father, a cancer patient, and her mother and sister, prices for sugar, oil and chicken have gone up, and hopes raised by the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas have proved fleeting.
“We couldn’t wait for shops to reopen and prices to drop, to feel some relief,” Ms. Saber said in a phone interview. “But now everything is becoming expensive again.”
Israel’s halt on goods and aid, including fuel, was aimed at pressuring Hamas into accepting its new proposal for extending the cease-fire, which paused the war in Gaza after 15 months of fighting and has since expired. Hours before the border closure was announced, Israel proposed a seven-week extension during which Hamas would have to release half the remaining hostages seized during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that set off the war.
The renewed aid blockade affected not just humanitarian aid, which is distributed free, but also commercial goods, and the effect on prices in the devastated enclave was almost immediate, Gazans said. The ban on shipments came as many were already struggling to observe the holy month of Ramadan, usually a festive time of fasting and worship.
“We were able to breathe for a bit and feel some hope again,” said Ms. Saber. “But now, we’re feeling depressed again,” she said.
The United Nations and several aid groups sounded the alarm over Israel’s decision to block the supply shipments.
“Humanitarian aid is not a bargaining chip for applying pressure on parties,” the aid group Oxfam said in a statement, calling Israel’s decision “a reckless act of collective punishment, explicitly prohibited under international humanitarian law.”
Doctors Without Borders, too, declared that “humanitarian aid should never be used as a tool of war. ” Doing so, it said, will “have devastating consequences” in Gaza, where it has “created uncertainty and fear, causing food prices to spike.”
The U.N. under secretary general for humanitarian affairs, Tom Fletcher, condemned Israel’s action. “International humanitarian law is clear: We must be allowed access to deliver vital lifesaving aid,” he said on Sunday. And Hamas itself denounced the Israeli move as “blackmail.”
Israeli officials have said that the government believes that the aid and goods that have entered Gaza in recent months and during the cease-fire meant there were enough supplies for several more months.
But in Israel, five nonprofit organizations filed a motion to the High Court of Justice calling for an interim order barring the government from cutting off the supply of aid to Gaza. Gisha, a human rights group leading the motion, argued that halting the provision of aid was illegal, even if, as Israel maintains, there is enough aid already there.
And even if food is available, it may now be even further out of reach for many Gazans.
“A kilogram of sugar was six shekels yesterday, but now, after Netanyahu said he will not allow anything to enter, its price has already risen to 10 shekels,” said one 30-year-old Palestinian, Amani Aata, who is from Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza.
And it is not only sugar, Ms. Aata said in a voice message on Sunday. “Everything, everything will become expensive again,” she said.
Abdulrahman Mohammed, a 35-year-old father of four from Gaza City, said that the prices of fruits and vegetables were also on the rise, with a kilogram of tomatoes surging from eight to 20 shekels.
Mr. Mohammed said that some traders and merchants were also deliberately withholding goods from the market to sell later at inflated prices, exacerbating the financial strain on Gazans.
On Monday, the Gazan Interior Ministry urged people to report price increases in markets and shops, as well as any merchants who appeared to be trying to turn the situation to their advantage. A day earlier, the ministry said it would take “strict measures against anyone who raises prices.”
Police forces have also deployed to markets across the territory “to monitor the availability of basic goods at their current prices,” the ministry said.
The aid halt came after a dramatic surge in humanitarian supplies entering Gaza during the first phase of the cease-fire thatbrought temporary relief to the enclave amid warnings of a looming famine.
When the fighting was underway, fewer than 100 trucks a day were entering the enclave, and even those deliveries were at times suspended. Relief agencies accused Israel of overly restricting deliveries with stringent inspections and the closure of border crossings. Israel denied those claims.
Ameera Harouda contributed reporting from Doha, Qatar.
