It is almost two years since the start of the Gaza war, and the people in the Gaza Strip have been dealing with the loss of human lives and the expense of surviving.
The prices of goods and services have been on the rise since October 2023, and even though prices went down for a short period at the start of 2025, they quickly increased again, especially for housing expenses such as water, electricity and gas and food.
Measuring housing expenses and food prices
To measure the cost of living and the changes in the prices of goods and services purchased or acquired by households, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) publishes the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The baseline is the prices of goods and services in 2018, where values above 100 mean higher costs. And as shown on this Chart of the Week, after five consecutive months of increasing prices between March and July, prices went down in August. However, they're still higher than they were two years ago.
The costs for a person to have a roof over their head and food to eat were constant throughout 2021 and 2022, with values of CPI of around 103 each year, but the numbers changed in 2023 and 2024. Housing expenses went from a CPI of 120.5 in 2023 to 231.89, an increase of 92.44 per cent, while food went from 116.80 to 379.24, a rise of more than 200 per cent.
The situation calmed down during the first two months of the year, when a ceasefire agreement came into place after 15 months of war.
However, that didn't last long for housing expenses, which in just two months reached a CPI of 1,018 and have remained constant, but costs could increase again given Israel's eviction order for all of Gaza city at the start of September. Additionally, accessing food has become a challenge for Gazans, and the CPI of food is another perspective on the crisis they have been confronting, peaking at 1,468 in July 2025, its highest level in the past decade, adding to the current famine in Gaza.
