Struggle and Solidarity: Writing Toward Palestinian Liberation

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In the sweltering markets of Gaza, or even in the muddy displacement tents where I have lived for months, having money in your bank account means nothing if you can’t scrape together five metal shekels for a pack of bread or even secure your transportation. I stand exhausted after walking miles in search of change, clutching a crumpled 100-shekel note that feels like a cruel joke. Merchants and exploitative money changers (who emerged when Israel banned electronic transactions and collapsed the banking system) offer me only 70 shekels in tattered coins. This is economic apartheid: a deliberate liquidity war designed to turn cash itself into a weapon of attrition, eroding our dignity one humiliating transaction at a time.

In Gaza, our suffering has come not only from the political war between Hamas and Israel but also from the economic war that we have been living with since October 7, 2023.

In the morning, I wake up to the voice of my mother telling my brother, “Did you bring bread for breakfast?” and I hear him say to her, “Where can I get change to buy? I gave the seller a 20 shekel note. He refused to sell to me and told me to bring some change so I could have bread.”

Each morning, our suffering begins with providing bread for breakfast. Due to the scarcity of firewood and gas entering Gaza, baking bread at home has become more expensive than the price of ready-made bread in the bakery. Everyone in Gaza is in this predicament.

The current struggle to access physical cash in 2026 is a direct evolution of the economic strangulation we endured a year ago. While 2025 was defined by soaring inflation and famine, today’s crisis is defined by the literal disappearance of the currency itself and the predatory black market that has filled the void.

Even for Those With the Money to Pay for Essentials, Cash Is Drying Up in Gaza

One year ago, in April 2025, 200 shekels were equivalent to 20 shekels due to high prices; Gaza was the only place in the whole world where the price of a kilogram of onions rose to $100. The unaffordability was compounded by the fact that exploitative money changers used to sell liquidity for electronic currencies in bank accounts. A person in Gaza would have 1,800 shekels remaining after........

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