Why a Carton of Eggs Is a Luxury in Gaza

Saeed Abu Riyala, 30, craves eggs. The newlywed makes about 22 to 24 shekels ($7.15-$7.80) a day selling packaged cookies in Gaza City’s rubble-strewn streets. That’s enough to buy cheap, less nutritious foods like bread and pasta. But eggs – let alone meat – are out of his price range.

"We haven't brought eggs into our house in forever," he said, referring to the tent where he lives after Israeli forces destroyed his house. "We used to buy them in the past, before the war, but I haven't bought any in quite a while now.”

Food is more available in Gaza relative to the Famine 14 months ago, but much of it remains out of reach for people like Abu Riyala. In the first half of October, eggs cost roughly twice to four times their prewar price. Their journey to Gaza's markets reveals how Israel’s siege shapes the cost of basic foods.

Palestinians no longer produce their own eggs: Israel’s war destroyed Gaza’s farms and fields. Instead eggs are trucked into Gaza via Israeli companies through a tightly controlled import market that, critics say, has led to sky-high prices, artificial shortages and created opportunities for corruption and profiteering.

Israeli authorities dispute responsibility for the high prices, blaming Hamas taxation. But Palestinian traders say Israel’s restrictions on imports and the fees charged by intermediaries through the Israeli-designed system are the major reasons for the increases.

From Staple to Luxury

Before the war, eggs were an affordable protein in Gaza, where local food production flourished despite a punishing Israeli blockade. They cost about 14 shekels ($3.66) per carton of 30 eggs.

But just in the first two weeks of October, the price of now-imported eggs varied widely, from a low of 27 shekels ($8.75) to 60 shekels ($19.40), according to Sourcebase interviews with traders and customers. Sourcebase’s AI system scoured World Food Program documents to identify eggs as a commodity with substantial price increases.

Few Gaza residents today can afford to pay the prewar price, much less a doubling or quadrupling of it. Three years into a devastating war, the majority of Gaza’s 2.2 million Palestinians rely on international aid for food, shelter and other assistance. Gaza is also facing the world’s worst economic crisis on record, according to the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). A report out last month found that 92 percent of economic establishments had been damaged or destroyed, most people are unemployed, and less than 1.5 percent of the strip’s cropland remained accessible and undamaged.

Though there’s a cease fire in Gaza, the prices of eggs and other scarce goods are unlikely to decline – and could easily climb. Israel controls all crossings into the Palestinian Territory, and tightly restricts what goes in. Israeli authorities currently permit only a small number of Palestinian traders to import goods via Israeli companies in a system partly designed to deny Hamas revenue sources and keep Gaza on the brink. But with so much money to be made, cross-border smuggling networks involving Israeli soldiers and security officials have flourished, further pushing up prices through a thriving black market. And Palestinian civilians are bearing the costs.

Given Israeli regulations and unpredictable delays at the border, aid organizations generally don’t bring in eggs or other fresh meat and produce; Instead, these nutritionally vital foods that were once locally sourced are now contingent on Israel and the import market. While aid organizations consider the nutritional makeup of the food they provide, private sector traders decide based on what foods will turn a profit and what Israel will permit on any given day.

“It's always fragile when you're in a context like Gaza,” said Toby Fricker, Chief of Advocacy and Communication for UNICEF, the UN’s children agency, in the occupied Palestinian Territories.

Though the situation has improved compared to the summer of 2025 — when people died daily from hunger, malnutrition rates soared and eggs, when they could be found, cost up to 600 shekels ($177) — the baseline remains unbearable, Palestinians in Gaza say.

“Now there is food,” said Fricker, but the small supply of “nutritious food can be out of reach economically.”

The ‘Coordination Mafia’

Palestinians refer to the Israeli trade restrictions driving up prices as “the coordination mafia.” Under this arrangement, Israeli-sanctioned traders sell space on their trucks to smaller traders who, often through Israeli and Palestinian middlemen, pay tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars per shipment in what’s known as “coordination fees,” according to six importers and wholesale traders interviewed by Sourcebase. The exact number of approved traders has fluctuated throughout the war. There is no official list, but traders say eight people are currently allowed.

From Gaza City, Hussam Huwaiti sells clothes and dry and fresh foods, among other items. He is also a board member of the Gaza Chamber of Commerce. Before the war, Israel heavily monitored and controlled what entered Gaza, but a large number of traders like Huwaiti could import goods.

Now Huwaiti must work through one of the few permitted “coordinators.” When he imports eggs, he pays about 13 ($4.25) to 15 ($4.90) shekels per carton from a farmer in Israel, but the price effectively doubles due to coordination fees. He sells the cartons for around 30 shekels ($9.80) each to wholesale traders in Gaza.

"The fees vary depending on how the crossings are operating,” he said. “When the crossings are open, the prices go down.” The week he spoke in early October, prices had risen somewhat in Gaza due to Israeli closures for Jewish holidays and the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack, he and other traders said.

Huwaiti said he didn’t work with a specific coordinator, but rather with whoever offered the lowest coordination fees. Depending on the item, amount and crossing conditions, Huwaiti said he can pay between 30,000 shekels ($9,740) and 100,000 shekels ($32,600) just in coordination fees. “It’s a market, so there are no fixed fees,” he said.

Sometimes he works directly with the coordinator and buys the items himself. Other times he works via a middleman in the Palestinian city of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, whose coordination fees are all inclusive. Costs come up at all legs of the journey. If he imports goods, there are customs duties at Israel’s Ashdod port terminal, other taxes, and the cost of transportation from the port through an Israeli company. For both imported and Israeli-procured goods, there are scanning fees at various warehouses, checkpoints and crossings; a fee to move goods from one side of Kerem Shalom crossing to the other; and payment for moving his goods from the crossing to his warehouse in Gaza.

All along, everyone involved takes a cut. Huwaiti said the deals are negotiated by phone and leave no paper trail: Officially, his goods are imported in the coordinator’s name.

Eggs, which have a relatively long shelf-life, are less of an import risk than fresh produce, which can easily spoil if delayed or are not immediately sold, Huwaiti said.

Tomatoes, for example, used to be locally grown and cost between two ($0.52) and four ($1.04) shekels a kilogram, depending on the type and season. Last August in northern Gaza, the price for this staple of Palestinian cuisine reached its highest of the war: 110 shekels ($32.40) a kilogram, according to WFP’s market monitoring. These days Hussam buys tomatoes from Israel for 1.5 ($0.50) to two ($0.65) shekels a kilogram, but sells them wholesale in Gaza for seven ($2.30) to eight ($2.60) shekels after adding on coordination fees. “Sometimes some of the goods spoil, so I make up for the loss on one product with the profit from another to stay in business,” he said.

Driving Up Prices

Importer Mohammed Barqi, who said he is one of eight Israeli-approved traders, has extensive business dealings spanning Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Egypt and Dubai. He told Sourcebase he did not charge coordination fees.

He said Israel permitted him to bring in more trucks than he could regularly fill, so he offered friends to import through him and added 12 to 13 percent as profit. “Everything is legal,” he said by phone from Cairo.

Sourcebase spoke to one trader who said he had paid coordination fees to Barqi. The trader spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of jeopardizing his work opportunities. “The people most affected are the residents of Gaza,” said the trader of the Israeli-controlled system.

Barqi spoke to Sourcebase on October 8 as he tried to send two trucks of eggs into Gaza. He purchased the eggs from a major Israeli supermarket chain named Hatzi Hinam for 12 shekels ($3.91) a carton, he said. But that Thursday when the trucks arrived at Kerem Shalom crossing, the main conduit for goods to Gaza, his men found the gates closed for unclear reasons. He would have to wait until Sunday to import them, he said, because the crossing would be closed Friday and Saturday for the Jewish Sabbath. The delay cost him 8,000 shekels ($2,600) per truck in driver and storage fees, he said.

According to a breakdown of the costs Barqi sent when the eggs entered Gaza three days later on October 11, he spent 168,000 shekels ($54,600) to import them (including the added truck fees), and added on a 20,000-shekel ($6,500) profit for himself.

It was only after Sourcebase began asking questions about the shipment's costs and profits that Barqi described a charitable discount. Barqi said his dad had decided to sell the eggs for a discounted 20 shekels ($6.50) a carton to wholesale traders, which he described as an act of charity. Barqi acknowledged that such discounts were unusual, but said he could afford to forgo a profit on this shipment because he would have other opportunities to make money.

Alongside the legal trade, cross-border smuggling rings involving Israeli soldiers, officials and businessmen have become a major conduit for goods — and have also pushed up prices. Items smuggled on trucks and through Israeli military entrances to Gaza include everything from cigarettes and tobacco to hard-to-procure medicines, solar panels, and spare parts that Israel won’t allow in under its broadly applied “dual-use” policy that restricts items with a potential military purpose.

Insufficient Aid and Trade

Last October, a U.S.-backed ceasefire began that lessened, though did not stop, Israeli bombardments and allowed for increased access to aid.

But in Gaza, practically the war never ended. Most Palestinians remain displaced and living in crowded tents or partially standing homes in the 30 percent of the small Palestinian Territory not controlled by Israeli forces. Sewage is everywhere. Electricity is scarce. While malnutrition rates have sharply dropped from unprecedented levels last summer, experts warn that gains are fragile as incomes and coping mechanisms are severely depleted. Most Palestinians can’t leave, and Israel has banned international journalists from independently entering the Strip. Gaza’s health ministry says Israeli bombs and bullets have killed more than 74,000 people and injured 175,300 others.

Allegations of Israel's obstruction of aid and trade, starvation of Gaza's population and destruction of its food production are among the issues in a genocide case before the International Court of Justice. Israel denies the charges and says there are no limits on the amount of goods it allows into Gaza.

Despite the still pressing needs, funding shortfalls have forced some aid groups to scale back. WFP, one of Gaza’s biggest food aid providers, recently reduced the number of people receiving food aid by 500,000 people, in addition to other cuts to cash assistance and hot meals.

Compounding donor fatigue, Israel has imposed new registration rules limiting the nongovernmental organizations that can bring aid into Gaza. Key ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government have also pushed to entirely end any assistance and to settle the territory after forcing out Palestinian residents.

An official with the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli defense ministry arm responsible for the movement of goods into Gaza, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in keeping with protocol, said authorities are not responsible for prices in Gaza. He blamed Hamas taxes, which he said could reach 50 percent, for inflating costs. Traders who imported goods or sold them wholesale told Sourcebase that Hamas authorities either did not tax or inconsistently did, and that basic food items were not taxed.

For a few days this month, Israel briefly cut off commercial trade to Gaza after Hamas authorities proposed new fees, which were then walked back, according to Barqi. During the brief dispute, the price of eggs doubled in some parts of Gaza, if they could be found at all.

But overall, commercial shipments have increasingly outnumbered humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza, according to the Gaza Chamber of Commerce. In the first two weeks of September, seven in ten trucks that crossed into Gaza carried commercial goods — 1,765 compared with 693 aid trucks — the highest proportion the chamber has recorded during the war.

Israel disputes those figures. An official with COGAT, the Israeli agency overseeing shipments, said roughly half the trucks entering Gaza carry humanitarian aid and that about 600 trucks enter five days a week. The official did not provide detailed figures. The COGAT official called the humanitarian situation in Gaza “stable” and said food was plentiful, citing a decline in malnutrition.

The figures are difficult to reconcile because authorities use different counting methods, recording shipments at different stages of the crossing process.

Daily Struggle

When trucks carrying eggs and other produce reach wholesale markets in Gaza City, stall owners such as Hady Eshteiwi, 23, race to buy them. “The varieties entering are scarce, and there is heavy demand for these items, so if you are late, at times you end up unable to get anything at all,” he said.

“In the fresh produce trade, fruits and vegetables, we relied entirely on local farming before the war,” he explained. “After the war broke out, that changed completely; everything began coming in as imports…. Whatever items are brought in through the crossing, we work with.”

Eshteiwi runs a stall made of stacked wooden containers draped in decorative cloth. His house was destroyed during the war. After being displaced at least eight times, he now lives with three brothers, one sister and his parents in a room at a school.

When he spoke on October 6, he said eggs sold for 34 ($11.02) to 38 ($12.32) shekels a carton, depending on the day, and tomatoes were in short supply. The week before he had sold tomatoes for 8 ($2.60) to 10 ($3.25) shekels a kilogram, turning a few shekels of profit. But that day he had bought a small amount for 17 ($5.50) shekels a kilo, and sold them for 20 shekels ($6.50) after adding on packaging and transport costs.

Like his customers, Eshteiwi has no electricity to run a refrigerator to keep his produce fresh.

Eshteiwi said representatives from Gaza’s Ministry of Economy try to impose price ceilings on goods, but ultimately market conditions determine them. He said he doesn't pay taxes, though he pays the municipality a yearly fee for his stall, on top of rent to the owner of the land. His customers all live within walking distance, he said, because few can afford transportation to travel.

Among the day’s customers was Abu Riyala, 30, who is financially responsible for himself, his new wife, and five family members. His family home was destroyed and he now lives in a tent.

Abu Riyala gives 10 shekels of what he makes a day to his mother, 10 to his wife, and he buys bread if he can with whatever remains. When he got married last month, he didn’t have a spare change of clothes for the ceremony.

That October day he purchased two tomatoes for five shekels ($1.65). Before the war, he would have bought several kilos and cooked the tomatoes with ground meat. But now he eats meat once every week or two when it's available at a local soup kitchen. The family has twice received money from the WFP, which they used to buy food, though the last time was four months ago.

His dinner that night would be tomato slices with processed cheese, a little oil, a toasted seasoning called dukkah, and cheap pita bread — a typical meal these days.

“I crave eggs,” he said. “I just want to buy myself nutritious food.”

Siham Shamalakh in Cairo and Salem Alrayyes in Gaza City contributed reporting.