How Much Does It Cost to Feed a Family in Gaza?

The figure we work to is $50 for a monthly food parcel for a family of six, and $10 for a day of hot meals for a family. Those numbers appear on our donation pages, and it is fair to ask what sits behind them rather than taking them on trust.

They are averages, and averages in Gaza are doing a lot of work. The same parcel has cost meaningfully more and meaningfully less within the same season, for reasons that have nothing to do with our procurement and everything to do with what was permitted through a crossing that week.

What is in a monthly parcel

A standard parcel is built around staples that store without refrigeration, travel without damage, and can be cooked with minimal fuel — the last constraint being the one outsiders forget:

• Flour, rice and pasta as the calorie base
• Lentils, chickpeas and beans for protein that keeps
• Cooking oil, salt, sugar and tea
• Tinned fish or meat where supply allows
• Tomato paste and other preserved vegetables
• Supplementary infant nutrition where a household has babies, costed separately

Why the price moves so violently

In a functioning market, the cost of staples drifts. Here it lurches. When crossings restrict, local prices for the same commodities can multiply within days; when supply arrives, they fall back. A charity quoting a single fixed price all year is either averaging heavily or not buying recently.

Transport and fuel are the second driver. Moving a pallet a short distance can cost more than the goods on it when fuel is scarce, which is why buying close to the point of distribution matters more here than almost anywhere else.

We buy locally whenever local supply exists. It is faster, it avoids the crossing, and it puts money into the hands of traders and producers who are themselves trying to survive — which is a second benefit that does not appear in any impact figure.

What different amounts actually cover

Taken from what we currently pay, rather than from a marketing round number:

• $10 — hot meals for one family for a day, prepared in a community kitchen
• $50 — a full monthly food parcel for a family of six
• $120 — infant nutrition for three babies for a month
• $600 — a community kitchen running for a full day, serving hundreds of people

How to read anyone's impact figures

Impact figures are estimates, and the useful question is what they include. A $50 parcel figure that covers only the goods, with transport, storage, staffing and verification paid from somewhere else, is not comparable to a $50 figure that covers the parcel delivered into a family's hands.

Ours is the second kind: the cost of getting the parcel to the household is inside the number, not appended to it. When you compare charities, ask which kind you are looking at — it explains most of the difference between figures that otherwise look suspiciously far apart.

A family does not eat a procurement estimate. What matters is whether the parcel is at the door, and whether there is another one next month.

Why regular giving changes the arithmetic

A single $50 gift buys one parcel. A $50 gift repeated every month (crypto gifts are one-time, so you send each one yourself) buys something categorically different: the ability to commit to a household in advance, place bulk orders at better prices, and hold stock before a shortage rather than after it.

Emergency response will always be reactive to some degree. Predictable income is the only thing that makes any part of it proactive.