GAZA STRIP, PALESTINE - APRIL 22, 2025: Due to the ongoing Israeli blockade amid continued genocidal attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip, Palestinians are now forced to cook their food using scraps of plastic and textbooks that once served students in their pursuit of knowledge. Fuel has been scarce in Gaza since Israel closed the border crossings on Mar. 2. As an alternative, locals gather plastic waste and tear pages from books as fuel. Instead of receiving education, Gazan children forage rubbish piles near residential areas, collecting burnable materials such as plastic, cardboard, fabric and discarded books. Books turned into kindling Umm Ibrahim al‑Attar, one of the Palestinians sheltering in the Islamic University building in northern Gaza City, gestured toward the books she now uses to burn fire in the oven and shared her sorrow: “Knowledge is the most beautiful thing in the world, but our children haven’t studied for two years. The universities are in ruins; instead of students, we now shelter inside. Today these books and papers—once sources of learning—will light us and cook our bread and food. I don’t know what else life will force on us. Who would have believed we’d one day throw these books into an oven as fuel?” Umm Ibrahim adds that one relative was killed while fetching water and another while selling vegetables, leaving behind orphaned children. Meals cooked over burning plastic are toxic In another part of the university in the conference hall where only the walls remain after bombardment, another group bakes bread and cooks meals. "We cook over fire. There is no wood — it’s too expensive. So we use plastic, but it is unhealthy." said Raja Salem, who cooks over fire. “We lack every basic necessity of life—water, gas, food. Yet eating, drinking, clothing ourselves and having shelter are our rights. We’re living on the street; we have nowhere fit for human beings.” said Nasreen al‑Kafarna, who has been displaced at least ten times. Israel resumed its offensive on the Gaza Strip on March 18, abandoning a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement that took hold in January. It has killed nearly 51,400 Palestinians, most of them women and children, in the enclave since October 2023. Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war that has left the territory on the brink of famine.