On March 2, we heard that all border crossings entering Gaza were closed and we don’t think it will last for more than two weeks. We really want a regular Ramadan where we can invite our surviving relatives to Eid without worrying about what food we can find to break our fast.

But this is not the case. We spent a holy month breaking our fast with canned food.

My family, like most families in Gaza, have no stockpiles of food or essentials because no one expects crossings to close again, or famine or even war to return.

In the days after the closure, food and other basic commodities disappeared from the market and prices soared. One kilogram of any vegetable jumps to $8 or more, $22 for sugar and $11 for infant formula. A bag of flour used to cost $8, up to $50; in two months it reached $300.

Most people in Gaza cannot afford these prices. As a result, families, myself, began to reduce the amount of meals they ate, limit themselves to breakfast and dinner, and narrow down the portion size for everyone - half of the bread to eat for breakfast, whole dinner. Men, women, seniors and children will stand in shame and sadness in front of bakeries and charity kitchens just to buy a few pieces of bread or a small plate of food. For some families, this will be their only food for the day.

All residents of central Gaza where I live rely on only three bakeries: two in Nuseirat and one in Deir El-Balah.

The crowds of these bakeries overwhelmingly blocked the area’s roads and stopped movement. Every day, fainting and suffocation caused by pushing and pushing. Finally, only a few people who wait in the morning will get bread.

My dad would go to the bakery before sunrise instead of using the leftovers of flour because we don’t know how long this will last. But he would find that the line had been long, dozens of people sleeping outside the bakery. He would stay until noon and send my brother to replace his position. In the end, they will have nothing.

On March 31, World Food plans announced the closure of all its bakeries, including three that we can use, due to the exhaustion of flour and the gasoline needed to run the oven. This marks the beginning of a real famine.

Soon, charity kitchens also began to close because they ran out of food stocks. In the past week alone, dozens of them were closed. People are becoming increasingly desperate, and many will hire local groups on Facebook or Telegram, begging anyone to sell a bag of flour at a reasonable price.

We live in a "lucky" neighborhood and the kitchen still works.

My niece, Dana, is eight years old and queues up with her friends every day, waiting for her turn, as if it was a game. If she receives a spoonful of food, she will come back to run and be very proud of herself. And if her turn is coming to her food before it runs out, she will cry and complain about how unfair the world is.

One day during Ramadan, a boy was displaced with his family and went to Mufti School near our home and tried so desperately that he fell into the hot food being cooked in the charity kitchen. He suffered severe burns and later died from them.

About a month and a half later, signs of famine began to become obvious within a month and a half of the lockdown. We see them in every aspect of our lives - sleeping on an empty stomach, losing weight internally quickly, pale face, and weak body. Now, climbing the stairs requires twice as much effort.

Getting sick and recovering is easier. My nephews, 18-month-old Musab and two-year-old Mohammed had high fever and flu-like symptoms during Ramadan. It took them a full month to get better due to lack of food and medicine.

My mother was severely lost to complications after having an ophthalmic surgery in late February. The malnutrition and gaps she needed to recover made her condition worse.

I am not feeling well myself. A few days before the borders closed, I donated my blood to the Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat, which seriously affected my physical health. Now, I have extremely weak inside my body, and I have difficulty losing weight and focusing. When I went to the doctor, he told me to stop eating canned food and eat more fruit and meat. He knew what he said was impossible, but what else could he say?

Perhaps the most difficult part about this situation is the need to explain the famine to the little ones. My nieces and nephews can't stop asking for something we simply can't provide. We try to convince them that we are not punishing them by hiding food, but we simply don’t.

Five-year-old Khaled is begging for meat every day, while looking at pictures of food on his mother's phone. He stared at the images and asked his martyred father if he could eat it all in heaven. He then asked when he would come, join his father and have dinner with him.

It's hard for us to answer. We told him to be patient, and his patience will be rewarded.

I feel helpless when I see the daily famine and despair scenes. I asked myself how the world remains silent when seeing children’s bodies become thinner and fragile, and sick and injured people slowly die?

The profession uses every method to kill us - by bombing, starvation, or disease. We have been reduced to begging for a piece of bread. The whole world is watching and pretending it can't even give us.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own views and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.