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Trucks are bringing food and other goods to be sold in Gaza after months of Israeli blockade. NPR's Aya Batrawy in Dubai and Anas Baba in Gaza report on what Gaza City is like after two years of war and hunger.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: (Speaking Arabic).
AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: This open-air market in Gaza City is colorful. There's apples, avocados, oranges and bananas for sale. Just a few months ago, none of this existed here. People were starving. Experts said there was a famine.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Arabic).
BATRAWY: NPR's reporter in Gaza, Anas Baba, sees 25-year-old Ahmed al-Ghoul (ph) staring at a stand selling eggs on the street. Eggs only reached Gaza City last month, many weeks into the ceasefire.
ANAS BABA, BYLINE: (Speaking Arabic).
AHMED AL-GHOUL: (Speaking Arabic).
BABA: (Speaking Arabic).
BATRAWY: Al-Ghoul tells him it costs the equivalent of more than $7 for 15 eggs. He just doesn't have that kind of money.
AL-GHOUL: (Speaking Arabic).
BATRAWY: He says he sees the produce, too, but he swears he hasn't tasted any. It's too expensive. There is more food now in Gaza, and U.N.-backed experts say there's no longer a famine. But they say that no child in Gaza is getting the nutrition they need and that two-thirds are suffering from what they call severe food poverty. The U.N. says families are relying on aid to survive, unable to afford what's being sold on the market. Those commercial goods are exclusively from Israeli traders and brought in by Palestinian merchants, and it is serving up a tableau of food.
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BATRAWY: At Cousins Bar & Restaurant, hamburgers, pizzas and chicken wings are back on the menu. Alcohol is banned in Gaza, so it's not really a bar, but it is a place where young people hang out. Shawarma stands and grilled meat restaurants have also popped up. Israeli government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian says 4,200 trucks of goods entered Gaza last week. But Israel does not provide a breakdown of how many are carrying aid and how many are commercial goods from Israeli traders. Still, she says...
SHOSH BEDROSIAN: You see supermarkets thriving, restaurants extremely busy, having bakeries open nonstop throughout different cities in the Gaza Strip. I advise you to look at social media to see the reality on the ground as well.
BATRAWY: The reality on the ground is that a burger, fries and Coke will set you back more than $30 in Gaza City today. Few can afford prices like this.
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BATRAWY: And at one of Gaza's new sweet shops, an Israeli surveillance drone buzzes overhead as those who can afford to dig into warm Palestinian baklava.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Arabic).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Speaking Arabic).
BATRAWY: At supermarkets in Gaza now, basics that were hard to find in the war are back on the shelves - shampoo, conditioner, soap. There are some luxuries, too - chocolate Nutella spread and the latest iPhone 17. But these commercial goods from Israel are not what's most in demand. That would be tents.
MAJDI AL-BARDAWIL: (Speaking Arabic).
BATRAWY: Majdi al-Bardawil (ph) is a 62-year-old who survives off a pension. He's at the market buying a few vegetables for dinner. He says even if this food was free, people can't find proper tents to sleep under. Most Palestinians are displaced, and makeshift tents have flooded this winter. Progress on the ceasefire is stalled, delaying reconstruction. Israeli troops still occupy more than half of Gaza. So as Israeli goods flow in, antibiotics, tents and fuel for cooking gas are hard to find.
Aya Batrawy, NPR News, Dubai, with Anas Baba in Gaza City. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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