Shurooq Ahmed
Mondoweiss / January 26, 2025
Amid the many tragedies in Gaza, far too many go untold. We must not forget those who lost their lives while simply trying to get a loaf of bread or a sack of flour.
For fifteen months, Palestinians in Gaza have not only had to endure relentless Israeli violence, but starvation, cold, and disease. The recent ceasefire has given us a reprieve from bombardments and sniper attacks, and significant quantities of aid and food have finally been able to enter the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing. But the fact that we are now able to get food without risking our lives has only highlighted how we haven’t had the time or space to process the immense grief and horror of this genocide. Amid the relentless death and destruction caused by Israeli airstrikes, so many other losses have gone unnoticed.
As a doctor, I have heard many tragedies over the past year that have gone untold. I gave some time to families to grieve and recover from the immediate shock before asking them for permission to recount their stories, so that the world knows what happened to their loved ones.
In Gaza, you can die for the crime of being hungry. Amid the biting cold and relentless hunger, you could lose your life trying to find something to feed your family. Two tragedies in particular have stuck in my mind, illustrating how a loaf of bread or a sack of flour can mean hope and life — or death.
The bread tragedy of Deir al-Balah
On Friday November 29, 2024, Gaza awoke to another morning cloaked in sorrow. Children’s empty stomachs were growling as they shivered under their blankets in tents that have become their homes. As the rain timidly dripped on the fabric above their heads, parents’ minds were filled with questions: “How will we feed our children today? How will we keep them warm?”
That day, a new tragedy awaited the residents of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. Scores gathered outside Bana bakery to secure loaves of bread, in an attempt to confront the hunger that had become their constant companion. The crowd at the bakery was massive, a desperate crush of people driven by the fear of returning to their tents empty handed. The tumult and overcrowdedness that day led three people to lose their lives.
Among them was 11-year-old Zina Ahmed Juha, one of my little sister’s friends. I knew her well. With her innocent smile, she symbolized childhood fighting for survival.
When she decided to go to the bakery that day, Zina’s only thought was to bring back bread to ease her younger siblings’ hunger. She did not know that this day would separate them forever. Being so small among the adults massed around her, Zina was swallowed by the chaos of the crowd and disappeared from sight. She suffocated, and only emerged as a lifeless body carried by shocked neighbours.
We didn’t tell my sister at first about what had happened to her friend. When she found out the news, she was in shock and cried every day. All we could do to help alleviate her sorrow was to pray with her for Zina.
Zina was not the only one to lose her life that day. Rahaf Osama Abu Luban (17) had witnessed the constant sorrow in her father’s eyes as he struggled every day to provide for the family. On that fateful morning, Rahaf decided to share his burden and accompanied him to the bakery at 3:00 a.m.
The crowd was overwhelming, and it seemed almost impossible to get any closer to the front of the line. Despite her father’s attempts to stop her, Rahaf insisted on carrying bread in her own hands. Amid the chaos and panic, Rahaf got lost in the crowd, and like Zina, she was asphyxiated and passed away. Only minutes after he lost sight of her, her lifeless body was carried to her devastated father, who collapsed in grief.
Her father returned to the camp in tears, telling us that he had tried hard to stop her from going in, but she had insisted on bringing back some loaves of bread for her younger siblings.
“A bag of bread killed Rahaf, the beautiful child who dreamed of becoming a teacher,” he told us.
Nisreen Tawfiq Fayyad (50) embodied the Palestinian mother who bears the world’s burdens on her shoulders. Despite knowing the risks, she couldn’t remain idle while her children shivered from hunger and cold.
She went to the bakery, driven by a motherly love that knows no fear — but she never returned, becoming the third victim of the crush at Bana bakery. Nisreen left behind five children, whose bread turned into a painful memory at an empty table.
The sack of flour that became a shroud
Barely ten days later, on Monday December 9, 2024, tragedy struck again, this time in Khirbet al-Adas, south of Rafah. The announcement that UNRWA was distributing flour to the area for the first time in 11 months brought people rushing out, filled with longing. The scene was full of temporary joy, with eyes glistening with hope and fear that they might not be able to bring anything back home.
Relatives Nader Ahmed Qishta (27), Mohammed Suleiman Qishta (25), and Salim Arafat Qishta (30), were among the first to arrive on the scene with their donkey-drawn cart, praying to obtain a sack of flour to feed their families.
But as they headed back home with the precious bag of flour, an Israeli airstrike hit. The cart, once carrying flour and the family’s dreams, turned into wreckage, the white flour mixing with blood. The sacks of flour they had dreamt of for days became silent witnesses to their martyrdom.
At least 15 Palestinians were killed in Khirbet al-Adas that day while trying to get food for their family. Their names — Ahmed Kamal al-Nahal, Wissam Qasem Shalouf, Ahmed Rami al-Nahal, Yassin Hazem Qishta, Fayez Hassan Qishta, Hussam Awad al-Balbisi, Mohammed Abdul Karim al-Nahal, Mahmoud Khalil al-Deiri, Yazan Kamal Hammad, Ali Arafat Alyan, Mohammed Hassan Abu Rizq, as well as Nader, Mohammed, and Salim — must not be forgotten.
Here in Gaza, death does not take common forms. It arrives as airstrikes, stampedes, or even hunger. Here, bread and flour are not mere sustenance, but a daily struggle for survival.
How can children, mothers, brothers die while seeking their most basic right? How can flour, a symbol of life, become a cause of death?
Gaza is killed every day, not only by bombs but by hunger, cold, and deprivation of the most basic human rights. The ceasefire has not put an end to our suffering.
Until when will the world remain silent? And how long will Gaza continue to pay such a heavy price? Amidst the despair, I write these words so the world may finally bear witness to what we endure.
Shurooq Ahmed is a 25-year-old Palestinian emergency doctor currently volunteering in Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip
