A hungry cat on the lookout for food. Photo: Khaled Al-Qershali

Late one night in March, when all my family had retired to sleep on their mattresses, I sat outside our tent on the wooden chair I’d built last summer. I’d been trying for an hour to find a stable internet connection so I could call my best friend, also named Khaled. He was being treated for leukemia, and I wanted to see how he was getting on.

Suddenly, the sound of Israeli jets filled the air. I thought they must be targeting our neighborhood. I was terrified. And I was not the only one. Along with the scream of F-16s came the frantic barking of nearby dogs and the pitiful yowling of cats. The dogs sounded as if they were seeking to escape with their lives.

This chorus of animals continued, night after night, the sound of quadcopter drones seeming to imitate the dogs’ barking.

The prohibitive cost of pet food

Since Israel ended the January 2025 ceasefire and has prevented any supplies from entering the Gaza Strip, food has been scarce in the markets and prices have skyrocketed.

“I can barely provide flour for my family,” my friend Kareem said. “Flour, sugar, milk, and oil are almost nonexistent in the markets. When we can find them, they cost a fortune.”

But people are not the only residents of the Gaza Strip who are experiencing famine.

Before the genocide, it was common for Gazans to keep domestic animals, mostly cats and sparrows. It was rare to enter a house in the Strip without seeing the household’s pets, who were loved and well cared for.

My friend Mahmoud played with his cat, Bisbis, every day. He bought food for the cat with his own money. But when people can barely afford flour for themselves, the cost of pet food, if it can even be found, is prohibitive. A bag of dry cat food used to cost around $8 dollars; now it costs $40.

During the ceasefire, my neighbor fed her cat on canned tuna. Now she could not afford canned tuna to feed the human members of the family.

In Palestinian tradition, we eat herring on the Eid Al-Fitr holiday. On March 30, the first day of Eid Al-Fitr this year, my friend Mohammed brought one kilo of herring. It cost him $50. That night, he was awakened by the sound of something moving around in the tent.

“When I woke up, a cat was running out of the tent with a herring in her mouth,” Mohammed told me. “Ordinarily, cats do not eat herring because of its salty flavor. In fact, after the cat ran from the tent, it didn’t even eat the herring but left it on the ground.”

This stray enjoys a rare treat of milk powder. Photo: Khaled Al-Qershali

When my friend Sobhi bought a kilo of fish, a stray cat came into the tent following the smell. Sobhi shooed the cat away, but it returned again and again.

Similarly, one day a cat slipped into our tent and headed straight for a plastic bag of bread. The cat bit into a loaf of bread and ran away. That loaf of bread had cost us around $4. After that, my mother stored the bread bag in a place that was harder for a cat to reach.

On April 1, my uncle’s house was bombed. My cousins were injured, and my uncle’s wife was killed. Another uncle of mine helped my injured uncle and his children evacuate to the southern part of the Gaza Strip. I started spending every night in Shuhada Al-Aqsa Hospital to help care for my uncle.

One night, my uncle asked me to cook canned sardines with tahini. We had bought some canned food and other supplies during the ceasefire when prices were affordable, and saved these tins. I made a fire near our tent, heated the food and, when it was ready, took the pan and headed towards the hospital. At some point, I realized a black dog was following me. I knew that cats ate sardines, but I was surprised the smell would attract a dog. I tried to continue to walk normally. But when the dog bared its teeth and lunged toward me, I ran as fast as I could—back in the direction I’d come from. After I’d stopped to catch my breath, I took a different road to the hospital.

Extreme behavior

These incidents made me curious about the effect of genocide and famine on animals, and how hunger can change an animal’s natural behavior. I decided to search for a veterinarian I could ask. As my daily routine involved going through all the shops in Deir Al-Balah looking for food, I began asking around for a veterinarian.

“There was a veterinary clinic near here in Al-Nakhil Street,” one of my neighbors told me, “but the veterinarians left at the beginning of this genocide.”

I did have a chance to speak with Diaa Ibrahim, a third-year student of veterinary medicine, and ask him about the impact of conditions in Gaza on pets and other companion animals.

“Many animals have died from malnutrition during this famine,” Diaa told me, “and there are no medications for animals in the Strip.

“People can no longer take care of their animals because of they lack food for themselves,” he added. “Because of this genocide, some people are even throwing their animals out onto the streets.”

Several Palestinians have lost their pets during the evacuation orders. It has been almost two years since Mahmoud has seen his cat, Bisbis.

Yesterday I met some displaced neighbors searching for a cat. I assumed they were looking for their pet but when I asked them, they explained, “We are in a famine, we want to eat it.”

It is forbidden in Islam to eat cats, but because they are starving they would do this.

The Israeli occupation doesn’t just commit war crimes against Palestinian people—it is also killing innocent animals.