Palestinian women across Gaza bake bread as their only source of income

(7 Jan 2026)
RESTRICTIONS SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Gaza City, Gaza Strip – 25 December 2025
1. Various of Eshraf Baroud, displaced woman baking bread in metal oven using firewood
2. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Eshraf Baroud, Displaced Palestinian woman:
”I didn’t work before the war. I was a housewife and home-stay mother teaching my children and taking care of them and of my house. God had thankfully provided us with blessings. We were getting by with the help of God. I never had to sit here like this in front of the fire.”
3. Various of Baroud baking bread
4. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Eshraf Baroud, Displaced Palestinian woman:
”What made me sit here and work using the oven is that I don’t have income at all. I had to work and do this so I would provide a living for my children and give them an allowance."
5. Baroud baking bread
6. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Eshraf Baroud, Displaced Palestinian woman:
"My income per day depends on the work I get to do. For example, what could 20 shekels do for me? Should I buy wood or food or give my children an allowance? It’s not enough at all, but we still say thank god.”

Khan Younis, Southern Gaza Strip – 30 December 2025
7. Various of woman baking bread, displaced people gathering waiting their food and bread to be ready
8. Various of woman baking bread
9. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Eftekhar Abu Awda, Displaced Palestinian woman from Beit Hanoun:
”I consider it a way to make a living. I have children and a household. And as you can tell from the situation, there’s no income or jobs. We’ve been through very tough circumstances. There is no allowance, clothes for our children and as you can see its winter. It’s winter and I’m here sitting by the oven to bake so I can feed my children. The situation until now, we’re in the south and the situation is bad. We haven’t seen any improvement. They said the war is over, but we can’t see improvement in the current moment.”
10. Various of Abu Awda baking bread for displaced people
11. Various of food cooked over clay oven

Gaza City, Gaza Strip – 25 December 2025
12. Various of woman baking bread
13. Various of destruction, tents of displaced people among rubble
STORYLINE:
Palestinian women across the Gaza Strip bake bread as their only source of income to provide the bare minimum for their families, as they grapple with the effects of the war.

Before the war, Eshraf Baroud, a displaced woman from Shati camp whose home was destroyed during the war, used to be a stay-at-home mother, while her husband worked as a plumber. Using a makeshift oven, she provides a bread-baking service for families in Gaza City, charging a small fee that brings in about 40 shekels (US$12) a day.

More than two months after the ceasefire began in the Gaza Strip, the enclave’s more than one million residents are struggling to cover daily expenses and rebuild their homes amid widespread destruction and limited humanitarian aid. Unemployment is high in the war-torn territory.

“We were getting by with the help of God. I never had to sit here like this in front of the fire. What made me sit here and work using the oven is that I don’t have income at all. I had to work and do this so I would provide a living for my children,” Baroud said.

Roughly half of Baroud’s income goes towards buying at least 20 kilograms of firewood, which is sold at inflated prices in local markets.

In one exposed area near worn-out tents in the Muwasi area of Khan Younis, at least 10 people gathered around a makeshift brick oven where several women baked bread dough provided to them by others.




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