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Gaza -

When the month of Ramadan approached, Asma Junaid knew that she had to give up most of her habits, including food and drink, decorating the tent, and visiting with relatives, but she did not imagine that the matter would amount to being deprived of drinking a cup of tea, or eating a dish of “Qatayef.”

The reason is due to the high price of sugar in the markets, as the price of a kilogram of it rose to about 70 shekels, after it was only 3 shekels (one dollar = 3.64 shekels), as a result of the siege imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip and the brutal aggression it has launched against the Strip since October 7. Last October.

Asmaa was displaced with her children, from the north to the center of the Gaza Strip, after her husband was killed in Israeli raids, and she currently lives in a tent in one of the shelter centers.

Sweets are a Ramadan ritual, but Gazans are unable to buy or make them due to the high cost of sugar (Al Jazeera)

Extreme need

Asmaa says that she and her children feel a strong need to eat sweets or sugar-sweetened drinks, especially tea after breakfast, especially since it is one of the main Arab families’ customs during Ramadan. But her lack of money, especially after the martyrdom of her husband, deprives her of all of this.

She resorted to a trick to save some money and buy sweets for her family, which consisted of buying pieces of “collage” and selling them to the residents, to make a small margin of profit. She explains that she buys 100 pieces of cake for 90 shekels, and sells them for 100, to earn 10 shekels, which she uses to feed her children sweets.

Ashraf sells sugar on the side of the road, but he can only bring it into his home in small quantities, for fear of losing his capital.

He told Al Jazeera Net, "Although I sell sugar, I only take small quantities of it into my home, 100 grams, for example. Previously, the price of a kilo was 2 or 3 shekels, but now it costs 70 shekels." Due to the high price of sugar, residents are asked to buy very small quantities of it, sometimes not exceeding 50 grams.

He points with his hand to a small amount of sugar (40 grams), and says, “This is 3 shekels, knowing that the price of a full kilogram was - before the war - 3 shekels.”

Ashraf attributes this significant increase in sugar prices to its unavailability in the markets due to the Israeli blockade, explaining that as merchants they suffer greatly to obtain small quantities of it to sell.

The high price of sugar prompts Ashraf Maqat to sell small quantities of it to citizens (Al Jazeera)

deprivation

Like the rest of the Arab countries, Qatayef sweets are very popular in the Gaza Strip during Ramadan, especially since their prices are cheap and accessible to everyone. But the high price of sugar and other commodities has made it an expensive dessert that only the rich can afford.

Hashim Sharrab, one of the qatayef makers, says that a kilogram of it costs about 120 shekels ($30), even though its cost before the war did not exceed 20 shekels.

This prompted most residents to boycott Qatayef and stop practicing a well-established tradition that they had grown up with since childhood, or buy very small quantities of it.

Sharrab told Al Jazeera Net, "The high price of sugar affects our work greatly during the month of Ramadan, as it reduces sales." He added, "The demand for qatayef is very weak due to the high cost of sugar, because it requires syrup (a solution made up of water and sugar) and a filling of dates or nuts, which is also expensive."

He believes that the high price of sweets during Ramadan makes citizens feel deprived, adding, “The body after fasting demands sugar, but it is not there.” Although he makes Qatayef, he cannot provide large quantities of it for his family, for fear of incurring huge losses that exceed the profits he gets from selling it.

People buy sweets such as ghariba and cakes because they are less expensive than qatayef and kunafa (Al Jazeera)

Rising prices

In turn, citizen Khaled Abdo says that he was able to buy Qatayef once during the month of Ramadan, and in small quantities, but he did not repeat this experience.

He added to Al Jazeera Net, "Qatayef is very expensive. It depends on the diameter and the filling of nuts or dates, and it also needs cooking gas. Unfortunately, I do not think I will eat it again during Ramadan."

The high cost of making Qatayef has led to the spread of other types of sweets that are less expensive and sold individually, such as “ghuriba, cakes, and maamoul.”

Although Moataz Al-Hattab specializes in making traditional sweets such as kunafa and qatayef, he decided not to make them because they require a lot of sugar, and instead turned to making cakes and maamoul.

He told Al Jazeera Net, "In the war, we made cakes, not kunafa and qatayef, because they need syrup, which consumes a lot of sugar, and the cost of a liter of syrup is about 70 shekels, but cakes and maamoul require less sugar."

Like his predecessors, he says that he cannot provide sweets for his family in large quantities, even though it is his craft. He added, "Like other people, we try to make Ramadan dessert after breakfast anything, be it a biscuit or a cake."

Muhammad Abd Rabbo sells “Ghuriba” sweets on a piece basis due to their high price (Al Jazeera)

The boy, Muhammad Abd Rabbo, offers a piece of ghariba for one shekel, which is a much higher price than it was before the war.

Abd Rabbo told Al Jazeera Net, "This pill is for a shekel. People do not buy it because of the high price of sugar. Few people buy it, and we buy it from the end of the world. 100 pills for 90 shekels so we can sell them for 100 shekels and make a profit of 10 shekels. Before the war, 100 pills were worth 50 shekels and we made a profit of 50." .

Source: Al Jazeera