Commentary: From acute food insecurity to famine: how the 2023/2024 war on Gaza has dramatically set back sustainable development goal 2 to end hunger

A Commentary on
From acute food insecurity to famine: how the 2023/2024 war on Gaza has dramatically set back sustainable development goal 2 to end hunger

by Hassoun, A., Al-Muhannadi, K., Hassan, H. F., Hamad, A., Khwaldia, K., Buheji, M., and Al Jawaldeh, A. (2024). Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 8:1402150. doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2024.1402150

1 Inaccuracies in reported prices and lack of source specification

Table 1 contrasts the food prices reported in Figure 5 of the original paper by Hassoun et al., together with the corrected prices sourced from PCBS and FPMA. The green rows show the price reported by Hassoun et al., which lacks proper source attribution in the published article. Below these, the prices sourced from PCBS and FPMA are shown. All prices are now presented as NIS per kilogram for clarity and consistency.

Table 1

Table 1. Comparison of food item prices in the Gaza Strip (NIS^a/KG) as reported by Hassoun et al. (in green) vs. figures sourced from PCBS and FPMA.

2 Food prices in the Gaza strip

In response to Hassoun et al., and to provide the most accurate price changes of food items crucial to the Palestinian diet, we have collected and analyzed prices in Gaza from January 2023 to September 2024, focusing on both locally produced and imported goods. We gathered information from various sources to ensure the reliability of the reported prices.

The ongoing conflict in Gaza has brought significant inflationary pressures, creating critical challenges for food security and affordability. From January 2023 to September 2024, essential food items have seen considerable price fluctuations, especially following the onset of regional hostilities in October 2023.

2.1 Food prices and post-conflict instability

In addition to correcting the wrongly reported items in the study by Hassoun et al., we also examined price trends for key food items, with a particular focus on bread—a staple in the Palestinian diet—as well as other locally produced and imported goods. Between January and September 2023, bread prices generally remained stable within a range of 2.58–2.89 NIS. In October 2023, prices briefly dropped to a record low of 2 NIS in January 2024 before rising, peaking at 3.25 NIS by September 2024—a 12% increase since January 2023. Locally produced goods, particularly chicken meat and olive oil, experienced substantial price hikes after the onset of conflict. Chicken meat prices increased immediately from 16.5 NIS/KG in October to 21 NIS/KG in November and 29 NIS/KG in December. They then remained stable at a high level until dramatically surging to 48.9 NIS/KG by September 2024, an increase of 133%. Olive oil prices rose significantly, from 30.2 NIS/KG in late 2023 to 68.2 NIS/KG by September 2024, marking a 126% increase. Both increases suggest production difficulties, likely due to resource shortages combined with damaged agricultural lands and infrastructure (UNOSAT/FAO, 2024).

2.2 Price differences among imported staples

Prices for imported staples like short rice (imported from Australia) and semolina (imported from Israel) have risen significantly. Short-grain rice, for example, increased from 9.82 NIS/KG in October 2023 to 13.8 NIS/KG by September 2024—a 40.5% rise. Semolina prices also climbed, peaking at 21.2 NIS/KG in March 2024 before slightly stabilizing. The price of long-grain rice (imported from the USA), however, has remained quite stable and is now slightly lower compared to the pre-war period, both in local currency and USD.

Sugar prices experienced sharp volatility post-conflict, rising from around 4 NIS/KG in November 2023 to a peak of 54.5 NIS/KG in March 2024. The price then decreased dramatically between June and August, to a low 5.6 NIS/KG, before rising again to 18 NIS/KG in September 2024. As sugar is reported to be imported from the EU, these abrupt changes reflect international trade disruptions and local scarcity.

2.3 Wheat flour and milk prices

Wheat flour, imported from Israel and a crucial component in bread production, has shown relative price stability, increasing only slightly from 3.9 NIS in early 2023 to around 4 NIS more recently. In terms of USD, prices show a slight decrease. The prices correspond to wheat prices in Israel, suggesting that wheat distribution to consumers has not been significantly affected by the war.

Milk, which is also primarily imported from Israel, saw prices double from 6.45 NIS pre-conflict to 12.8 NIS by April 2024. In Israel, prices have slightly increased since the beginning of the war, while local milk production dropped drastically¹. This suggests a halt in milk exports to the Gaza Strip, which would have contributed to keeping prices stable in Israel.

3 Impact on conclusions

The article by Hassoun et al. rightfully emphasizes the worsening food insecurity in Gaza due to the ongoing war since October 2023. However, it reports inaccurate information, and mistakenly highlights price increases in food items that are not central to the common Gazan diet (Horino et al., 2024). Items such as fish and veal, which are wrongly reported to have experienced extreme price hikes, hold relatively little importance in the daily diet of the Palestinian population. The focus on these less critical items distracts from the real and pressing issue: the significant volatility in the price of bread and the overall increase in staple foods, both play a crucial role in the diet of Palestinian households, especially for poorer families.

In conclusion, Hassoun et al. reports food price data inaccurately, which raises significant concerns regarding the validity of their findings on food insecurity in Gaza. The misreporting of price data misleads readers and distorts the overall conclusions drawn about food security during the 2023 war on Gaza. In addition, focusing more closely on bread and other staple foods may have helped provide a more accurate depiction of the food insecurity crisis in Gaza, especially in relation to poor and vulnerable populations that rely heavily on these foods.

Author contributions

RZ: Data curation, Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft. JC: Writing – review & editing.

Funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. RZ acknowledges funding from HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships – European Fellowships grant agreement no. 101111405.

Acknowledgments

Rotem Zelingher thanks the Department of Economics at WU, Vienna, for their hosting and support.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Generative AI statement

The author(s) declare that no Gen AI was used in the creation of this manuscript.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Footnotes

1. ^According to the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture, the Israeli agricultural sector has been experiencing labor shortages and low production since the beginning of the war.

References

Horino, M., Zaqqout, R., Habash, R., Albaik, S., Abed, Y., Al-Jadba, G., et al. (2024). Food insecurity, dietary inadequacy, and malnutrition in the Gaza Strip: a cross-sectional nutritional assessment of refugee children entering the first grade of UNRWA schools and their households before the conflict of 2023-2024. Lancet Glob. Health 12, e1871–e1880. doi: 10.1016/S2214-109X(24)00320-6

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

UNOSAT/FAO (2024). Satellite Imagery Report. Available at: https://unosat.org/products/3939 (accessed September 20, 2024).

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