Gaza's children yearn for simple treats parents can no longer provide

From crisps to a piece of chocolate, childhood cravings are either unavailable or unaffordable as families struggle to survive the war

A woman living in a camp for displaced people in Al Mawasi, southern Gaza, feeds her children rice and lentil soup during Eid Al Adha. AP Photo

In a quiet corner of Gaza city, Muneera Abu Hani sits with her eight children, their eyes reflecting a longing no parent wants to face. Her youngest daughter, Widad, dreams of chocolate, a small treat once easily attainable but now entirely out of reach.

“Widad is just eight,” Ms Abu Hani, 42, told The National. “She loves chocolate and asks me for it all the time. But it’s not in the markets any more. And there’s nothing harder than seeing your child want something so small, and not being able to give it.”

This is the daily torment facing parents across Gaza with the territory under siege.

For more than 20 months, Gaza has faced not only war but a tightening blockade that has choked the economy, emptied markets and made even essentials hard to come by. With border crossings closed to the free flow of goods, what were once daily provisions such as bread or fruit have become a luxury, a distant memory.

“Children suffer the most in a famine,” Ms Abu Hani says. “They don’t understand why things have disappeared. They only know they’re hungry, or that they want something. And we, their parents, are powerless.”

Children wait to collect food from a charity kitchen in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, in late May as a nearly three-month Israeli blockade on aid pushed the territory towards famine conditions. EPA

In the Al Nasr neighbourhood of the city, Mohammed Shubeir recounts a similar struggle.

“I live in an apartment full of children. They ask for everything, things they used to eat every day. The markets are empty of even the basics,” says Mr Shubeir, 36. “We passed a street stall the other day that had a single small piece of chocolate. It used to cost a quarter of a dollar. Now it’s 12 dollars.”

It is a steep price for a bite of sweetness that, to a child, means comfort, normality, happiness.

“These traders hoarded goods to sell them now at sky-high prices," Mr Shubeir says. "When my kids ask for things that I can’t find or can’t afford, I just tell them to wait until the crossings open. But they keep asking, and I have nothing. That helplessness is the worst feeling in the world.”

Rima Al Madhoun, 33, says her son Kareem wakes up asking for chips and juice.

“I have nothing, just bread and cold tea without sugar. That’s all we have,” she says.

Her husband roams the markets daily, trying to find anything – vegetables, fruit, baby food – for their four children, the youngest just one year old.

“It’s not like our children are asking for toys or luxuries,” Ms Al Madhoun says. “They just want vegetables. Some fruit. Something fresh. But we can’t get anything. Even if you had money, there’s nothing to buy.”

The devastating war has created a grim reality for Gaza's children, displaced from their homes, their education disrupted, surrounded by death and living in a landscape of widespread destruction.

“The occupation has stolen everything from our children,” says Ms Abu Hani. “Even the right to want something.”

Parents find themselves no longer decision-makers; they are spectators to their children's suffering, able only to offer apologies and empty promises when all their children want is food. It is a slow, silent heartbreak to be endured in the shadow of a war with no end in sight.