Gaza's hungry forage for food as famine looms

STORY: As the UN Security Council demanded an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Monday, relief for its residents was drifting further from reach.

Palestinians are forced to forage for food, with famine inching closer in the enclave.

Mohammad Shehadeh says he risks his life to scrounge for this leafy wild plant known as khobiza, a variety of what in English is called common mallow.

He sells it in the market, but that - and lemons - are all his own family have to eat.

"My young children ask to eat, but what do I have besides khobiza? I cook it, and they eat it with spoons, without bread."

It's a similar story for Maryam Al-Attar, who says Israelis have shot at her and her husband when they went to pick khobiza in the east.

"All our lives - even through wars - we have not eaten khobiza. My daughters tell me, 'we want to eat bread, mother.' My heart breaks for them. I can't find a piece of bread for them. I go and gather some khobiza. We have found khobiza for now, but in the future, where will we get it from? Khobiza will run out. Where do we turn?"

It's also the middle of the holy month of Ramadan, when millions of Muslims around the world fast from sunrise to sunset, before enjoying large dinners with their extended families and watching special television shows.

Gazans, however, are fasting on empty stomachs, save for some khobiza - for now.

This woman says she and her family are dizzy from hunger and consumed by cravings for vegetables, fish and meat.

The foraging is another reminder of the suffering throughout the Palestinian enclave in the five months of war that has followed Hamas' bloody October 7 attack on Israel.

In mid-March, the Integrated Food-Security Phase Classification, which monitors the world's hunger, said famine is imminent and likely to occur in northern Gaza by May, possibly spreading across the enclave by July.