After a year without fresh food, a sudden reprieve in Gaza: Apples

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Most people take access to fresh food for granted. Not so for Haytham Dalou’s children, who have been eating canned food for nearly a year.

When they found out recently that fresh food had finally arrived, the children—ages 4, 6 and 10—were elated. “My children were so happy to see apples for the first time in nine months," said Dalou, a father of two girls and a boy. “They jumped out of their beds when they knew they would eat fruit." The reaction of the children, who live in Gaza City with their father and mother, reflects the level of food insecurity that many people in Gaza experience.

While the U.S. and other countries have sought to increase food deliveries to Gaza, aid groups say it hasn’t been enough. A majority of the roughly 2.2 million people who live in the enclave are facing severe hunger.

Dozens have died from malnutrition, according to the United Nations. Months of relying on canned food, with little to no access to fresh fruit, vegetables or protein, is having a severe impact on people’s health. In recent weeks, however, some in northern Gaza suddenly got a reprieve.

Aid groups say they have recently been able to deliver fresh fruit and frozen meat to the north, where many Palestinians haven’t seen such items for months. Intense bombardment and fighting made it difficult, and frequently impossible, to deliver aid there earlier in the war. After the Israeli military moved into Rafah with the stated goal of uprooting Hamas in May, many aid organizations had to shift their operations away from the southern Gaza city, which had served as a nerve center for them.