Gaza

'There's no value for money,' says Gazan father struggling to feed his six children

Adam Goldsmith

I've been speaking to a father in Gaza, who’s been telling the BBC about the costs involved with keeping his family alive amid the deepening hunger crisis in the Strip.

Mahmoud Abu Daqqa and his wife have six children, who range in age from one to 13 years old.

He tells me over WhatsApp how purchasing 3kg (6.6lb) of flour every day costs around $180 (roughly £133).

In the UK, a similar bag of flour would only come to around £4.

Stacked on top of that are the costs for nappies (Mahmoud tells me this adds up to around $150 every ten days) and formula for his infant - with one bottle costing $150 (£110) and lasting four days.

Market traders, Mahmoud tells me, now only accept cash, which means a transaction fee of another $50 (around £37) for every purchase.

Mahmoud has been documenting his daily life on TikTok to gather support, but he says his family is still only able to have “one piece of bread in the morning and one in the evening".

"In the afternoon we cannot eat."

These prices, Mahmoud says, “are only increasing, not becoming less".

"There’s no value for money. You are paying $200-$300 daily but you’re still hungry, your child is still hungry,” he says.

“We are suffering a lot… We want to be safe.”