'We are being starved - the world has just forgotten us'

Families in Gaza asked to pay £70 for just a kilo of peppers

- NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI

In the north of the Gaza Strip, where Palestinians have been hit hardest by hunger, residents say acute shortages of vegetables, fruit and meat mean they are surviving on bread alone. Food that can be found in the market is being sold at exorbitant prices, they said: a kilo of green peppers, which cost about 80p before the war, is priced at 320 shekels or nearly £70. Traders demand £55 for just a kilo of onions.

“We are being starved; the world has forgotten about us,” says Um Mohammed, a mother of six in Gaza City. She has remained there throughout more than eight months of Israeli bombardments. But she and her family have left their home for designated shelters in UN schools several times. “Except for the flour, bread, we have nothing else. We don't have anything to eat it with, so we eat bread only,” she says.