In Gaza, money is falling apart

Summary

Planet Money (NPR)

Episode: In Gaza, money is falling apart

Date: September 20, 2025
Host: Sarah Gonzalez

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the breakdown of Gaza’s economic infrastructure amid the ongoing war, focusing on how a severe shortage of cash—and the collapse of the financial system—upends daily life. Through the story of two friends, Al Din Allah (the Prince, now in Belgium) and Mohammed Awad (Modi, the Maestro, in Gaza), and the voices of residents like Haya, the show explores the intricate, often desperate ways Gazans navigate money shortages, hyperinflation, and scarcity of basic goods. The episode both personalizes and explains the mechanics of Gaza’s failing economy, from makeshift aid systems to barter, digital banking woes, and the physical disintegration of paper currency itself.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Connections as Economic Lifelines

• Reunion of Friends: Sarah introduces Al Din (in Belgium) and Mohammed (in Gaza), who have not seen each other in 11 years but work together daily to get money and essentials into Gaza. Their childhood memories—like buying falafel on the way to school—contrast sharply with Gaza’s current devastation.
  “Muhammad is really like the best human I can know...when bad things happening, Muhammad got in even more like higher place inside my soul.” – Al Din (01:15)

2. Collapse of Gaza’s Cash Economy

• Currency in Crisis: Gaza relies on Israeli shekels, but no new cash has entered for nearly two years. Banks and ATMs are defunct. The physical money left is disintegrating from overuse. “Whatever paper cash was in Gaza before the war started, that's basically all that's been circulating for two years. It's been overused so much, the bills are now faded and fraying.” – Sarah (05:00)

• Impossibility of Banking: With no banks and spotty electricity or internet, digital money is practically useless for many. People want paper money, but there’s a steep fee—sometimes 50%—to convert digital bank funds to hard cash. “We buy money with money.” – Haya (13:22)

3. The Social Cost of Scarcity

• Scenes from the Camps: Haya, a 23-year-old Gaza resident, describes life in a tent camp, losing her home, basic security, and comforts like studying or baking.
  “No, I don't have a home. I have a tent.” – Haya (09:17)

• Barter and Hyperinflation: With jobs almost nonexistent and the little food available, people barter—in one example, oil for flour. The cash shortage leads to hyperinflation:

  • Tomatoes: $32 per kilo (16:40)
  • Cooking oil: +1200% in spring
  • Flour: +5000%
  • Tents: $900
  • Diapers: $75 per pack (previously $6)

• Danger and Survival: Collecting aid or shopping is risky; as Al Din notes, even getting food is life-threatening.
  “Who want to bring the food, he need to be like in really good shape and like ready to die. So they making it as a job.” – Al Din (16:15)

4. Creative Crisis Money Flows

• ‘Impossible Light’ Project: Al Din and Mohammed coordinate an informal, transnational aid network called Impossible Light. Using a web of Palestinian bank accounts and personal relationships, they route donations into Gaza.

  • “You cannot easily or regularly walk into a bank in Belgium or the US Or Egypt and say, here, I'd like to deposit all of these donations into the account of this person I know in Gaza.” – Sarah (22:11)
  • They perform a kind of currency swap, trading donated euros (or dollars, yen, etc.) for shekels held by Palestinians abroad, and then transferring those shekels internally to Gaza-based accounts.

• Bank & Regulatory Barriers: Formal remittances are fraught with anti-terror controls. Even relatives face transfers being frozen or returned unless strictly documented.

5. The Price of Paper: Cash Brokers and ‘Repairmen’

• Buying Money: “Cash brokers” or “money changers” sell cash at ruinous rates.
  “You show up to the money exchanger with 100 shekels, like in your bank, and you transfer it into his bank account like that...And the money exchanger Give me 50 shekels.” – Haya (13:42)

• Money Falling Apart: Torn, worn bills may be rejected by shopkeepers, requiring “cash repair people”—another layer of middlemen in the financial system crisis. “The money become hurts and destroyed. So when you offer it to a seller, they don't accept, become nothing, become worthless.” – Mohammed (30:39)

6. Living on the Margin and Hoping for Normalcy

• Even the Rich are Stranded:
  “You can be the richest person in Gaza. It doesn't mean anything when there's nothing to buy.” – Sarah (33:13)
• Kids and Online Worlds: Mohammed’s daughter watches YouTube, longing for foods not available, highlighting the surreal contrast between digital connection and daily deprivation.
• Persistence and Hope: Despite everything, Haya keeps studying online and maintains hope for Gaza’s reconstruction.
  “Hope is the only thing Israel can't take from me. So there's a hope. Always hope for good future, hope for this war stop in one day. Hope for graduation like that. Rebuilding the Gaza Also.” – Haya (36:28)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On friendship and resilience:
  "He's my best friend. He's my brother. He's everything that friendship mean." – Mohammed (01:04)

• On economic devastation:
  “We eat right now to stay alive, not for joy.” – Mohammed (02:56)

• On the cost of scarcity:
  “A kilo of tomatoes now cost us about $32.” – Haya (16:40)
  "Three tomatoes cost 21 shekels." – Haya (36:09)

• On loss and hope:
  “Hope is the only thing Israel can't take from me.” – Haya (36:28)

• On innovation under blockade:
  "The trick is to trade them for those shekels. Like your shekels for my euros or pounds or yen or dollars, whatever currency they now use." – Sarah (25:42)

• On risk and survival:
  “Who want to bring the food, he need to be like in really good shape and like ready to die.” – Al Din (16:15)

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Important Timestamps for Core Segments

• [01:04] – Mohammed and Al Din reflect on their friendship
• [02:56] – How food and money use have changed (“We eat right now to stay alive…”)
• [05:00] – The physical collapse of Gaza’s cash infrastructure
• [11:24] – Bartering as a primary economic mechanism
• [13:22] – "We buy money with money" explained
• [16:40] – Hyperinflation and food prices
• [22:11] – Explanation of Impossible Light’s informal banking workaround
• [25:42] – The mechanics of international money swaps for Gazan shekels
• [30:39] – Worthless cash and the need for “cash repairpeople”
• [33:13] – Difficulty of using money when there’s nothing to buy
• [36:28] – Haya's final reflection on hope and the endurance of Gazans

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Episode Flow

1. Introductions & Background: Stories of enduring friendship, the nostalgia for a pre-war Gaza, and the personal effects of conflict (01:04–02:56).
2. Crisis Explained: How the shekel shortage and banking collapse have made regular transactions impossible; the emergence of cash brokers (05:00–13:22).
3. Stories from Gaza: Haya’s life in a tent camp, barter, hyperinflation, and extreme risk in merely accessing food or aid (08:17–18:50).
4. DIY Aid Networks: The mechanics, risks, and creativity of Impossible Light’s efforts, navigating regulatory minefields and informal currencies (21:28–28:30).
5. Physical & Economic Decay: The literal disintegration of cash and the market for repaired currency; growing futility of wealth in absence of goods (30:39–33:13).
6. Children, Digital Connection & Persistent Hope: Contrasts between online life and real world deprivation, Gazans’ continued hope for peace and future (34:26–36:28).

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Tone & Takeaways

The tone is intimate, direct, and often conversational, alternating between narrative explanation and the raw voices of people living the crisis. It is vivid, compassionate, and forthright about the moral, logistical, and human complexity of survival in Gaza’s shattered economy.

The episode’s essential message: In places where money and markets literally fall apart, ingenuity, networks of trust, and stubborn hope sustain people—but survival comes at great cost, and the system's collapse is not merely a technical failure, but a fundamentally human crisis.

Transcript

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[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

This is Planet Money from npr.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

Hello.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Hello. The other day I joined a call between these two old friends, Ala Al Din, Sheikh Khalid and Mohammed Awad.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

Hello.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Hey Sarah.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

Hey Mohammed. Hi.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Hey sir.

[Mohammed Awad (Modi, The Maestro)]

How are you?

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

Good.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

They haven't seen each other in 11 years, but they're always on the phone together every day. You talk daily?

[Mohammed Awad (Modi, The Maestro)]

Yes, he's my best friend. He's my brother. He's everything that friendship mean.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

And Al, who is Muhammad to you?

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

Muhammad is really like the best human I can know. Like when bad things happening, Muhammad got in even more like higher place inside my soul.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

So yeah, Al Din calls Mohammed Modi.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

Yeah, we call him Modi.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Mohammed calls Al Din just Allah. Pretty simple nicknames. They were much more creative in high school.

[Mohammed Awad (Modi, The Maestro)]

Allah, we call them Al Prince.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

The prince, you called him the prince.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

Yeah, he's right. And then Muhammad Al Maestro. Yeah.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

So the Maestro and the prince.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

Oh yes, yeah, two best friend.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Al Din Allah, the Prince and Mohammed Modi the Maestro grew up together in Gaza. In high school, Muhammad used to have to walk by Al Din's house on the way to school. And every morning Allah would wait for Modi.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

And we like going together, walking. There is the guy who opening his store for morning student. And he selling falafel, hummus, ful, like very tasty small sandwiches.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Do you remember that? He asked Mohammed.

[Mohammed Awad (Modi, The Maestro)]

Yes, of course I remember. It's our daily breakfast.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

This memory they have of walking to school in Gaza, buying falafel and hummus sandwiches. This could never happen today because first of all, Al Din is in Belgium now and Mohammed is stuck in in Gaza. But also kids in Gaza have not gone to formal school in almost two years. 90% of homes have been damaged or destroyed. And food well. Though Israel disputes this, a United nations backed panel has declared famine in parts of Gaza, which means there is documentation of widespread starvation.

[Mohammed Awad (Modi, The Maestro)]

We eat right now to stay alive, not for joy.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

And besides food there, there's something else that's missing. When Al Al Din and Mohammed used to stop by the falafel store, they'd just dig into their pockets. How would you pay for it? With cash?

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

Yeah, cash. It was like, cheap as coins. Shekels, like one shekel, for example, something like that.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Shekels are the Israeli currency, but Gaza uses the Israeli shekel, too.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

Yeah, for sure. The economy is sharing with Israel the currency.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

And Aladdin says sharing currencies with Israel was, in a way, for a while, good for Gaza.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

From the shekel is good economy, we can say good economy.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

The Israeli shekel is a strong currency, but Israel stopped letting physical shekels into Gaza almost two years ago when the war started. No new cash or coins have been allowed to enter, and there are no banks, branches, or ATMs operating in Gaza anymore. In addition to all of the other shortages in Gaza, there's also not enough money. So Aladdin, the prince in Belgium, he's now trying to get money into Gaza. Israeli shekels into Mohammed's bank account, which is not that simple.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

No, absolutely not. Yeah.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

And Mohammed, the maestro in Gaza, he's trying to somehow turn that money in the bank into cash to buy things people need. That's why they're on the phone every day.

[Mohammed Awad (Modi, The Maestro)]

Cash is very big problem here.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

How do you turn money in the bank into cash when there are no banks and almost no electricity and spotty Internet? And what is there to buy? How does money even work in Gaza right now? Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Sarah Gonzalez. Whatever paper cash was in Gaza before the war started, that's basically all that's been circulating for two years. It's been overused so much, the bills are now faded and fraying. Money in Gaza is falling apart. Today on the show how Mohammed and Aladdin are little by little getting money from outside of Gaza into Gaza in order to buy food, milk, tents. This involves multiple bank accounts all around the world, plus a cash broker in Gaza, sometimes a cash register repair person in Gaza, just to get usable money in Muhammad's hands. One time.

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[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

For me, sometimes I just need to go and talk to somebody that is not gonna judge me. Right, is gonna be there and they're gonna listen to me. And I can't start just saying, look, I'm not feeling right today. And it feels natural. I love it.

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[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Al Din and Muhammad's whole project started because these two best friends ended up in two very different places. Muhammad was stuck in Gaza and Aladdin was not. Al Din was able to pay to evacuate some of his family back when you could do that. But Muhammad couldn't get out in time, and Aladdin couldn't get his mind off of Muhammad or out of Gaza. So he started thinking, okay, what can I get into Gaza? He can't send food or packages. Israel controls the flow of anything into Gaza. The Israeli military says it's not letting cash in because it wants to prevent Hamas from being able to buy weapons or pay fighters. But this cash blockade is affecting all 2 million people in Gaza. UN experts have called it a severe economic emergency and pushed for an end. The Palestinian Authority in the west bank also stopped cash shipments to Gaza because there were robberies. So last year, Aladdin decided maybe he could get money in for the family he has left behind. Friends, friends of friends, not to hand out his cash.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

Actually, people there is not looking for money exactly. You know, they need it for urgent needs.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Yeah. No one's handing out cash. Aladdin and Mohammed's whole project, which they call Impossible Light, by the way, is to get money in in order for Mohammed to buy formula, tents, diapers, water to give away for free.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Muhammad, give the family the tent, give the family the food, like that.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

This is Haya.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

I'm from Gaza Strip.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Haya lives in a camp in Gaza along with a bunch of families that Al Ad Din and Muhammad have been trying to help out. They put us in touch. She's the oldest child in her family, and talking to Haya really helped me understand what it's like to live in a place where there's a cash shortage. What families like hers have right now, what they don't have. How old are you, Haya?

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

I'm 23 years old.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

23. And where are you living currently? Like, where are you sleeping recently?

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

In Al Mawasi, in a tent.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

The Al Mawasi tent camp is where many of the hundreds of thousands currently fleeing the Israeli assault on Gaza City are likely headed. One of the few places left where people can stay in Gaza, Haya says it's crowded beyond imagination already. Do you have pictures of your home now, where you're living now?

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Home now what?

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Every time I ask Haya about Her home. Now she says, what? No, I don't have a home. I have a tent.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Our tent is very simple.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Inside the tent, there are just these eight mattress pads on the floor. Whatever belongings they have are covered under.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

This red cloth to make the place pretty, you know?

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Haya doesn't really want to talk about her tent. What Haya wants to show me is pictures of her real home and her old life.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

This is the cat Mimi.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Mimi is Haya's fluffy white cat that she hopes is still in her home somewhere. If her home is still there, she's not allowed to go back to check. That's your house, that big house, right?

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

My house is big house.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Haya misses her room in that big house, her poetry books, having a door, quiet.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

I'm a person who like be alone to read or to write.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

She misses baking a cake, a cheesecake.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

A knappa, you know kunafa.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

I love kunafa.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

It's I meet you. I. I will bring a knafa.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Okay, sounds good. Have you ever left Gaza?

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Just one.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Just once, right? For decades, Israel and Egypt have both restricted travel in and out of Gaza. But inside Gaza, until this war, people could still go to school every day, go to restaurants, go to the bank, go shopping, go work, make money. Can anyone work right now? Your mom, your dad, you? Is anyone working and making money right now?

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Right now? No. There is no job in Gaza.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

In certain, there are no jobs in Gaza anymore, says Haya. Her dad used to be a farmer, but 98.5% of cropland in Gaza is either damaged, inaccessible, or both. Her mom was a teacher. But there's no more school, so there's no reliable way to make money except around aid work. So Haya says often people just barter to get what they need.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Yes. Right. My cousin traded oil with her neighbor in exchange for flour.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Oil in exchange for flour?

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Yes, for flour.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Sometimes ha and her family will sell things, like when they have extra lentils at their tent, extra chickpeas, extra. And people will pay them through, like mobile banking. Just transfer money from your Palestinian bank account to my Palestinian bank account. People in Gaza have been asking for money on crowdfunding sites. They will even call random phone numbers in the west bank, asking strangers to please deposit money to them. But electronic money in a bank account has become less and less valuable. In the war, Israel has cut off electricity to Gaza except for one line that powers two water desalination plants. According to the Israeli military, The there's some solar panels and backup generators, but there's Limited Internet access. A bank transfer doesn't always go through when you need it to. Also, not everyone had a bank account before the war. So unless you can physically hold your money in your hand, you can't always use it. That's why people want paper money, cash. Do you and your family have cash right now?

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Right Now I have two. 200 cash.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

200 shekels?

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Yes. Right.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

And so that's $59 in the U.S. right. Whenever their family gets cash shekels in their hands like this, it is a valuable possession that they keep close by.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

I put the money in my bag, and if all family goes outside the frame tent, we make one person inside the tent to protect the money.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

This cash, she has the US$59 in shekels. She paid $118 for it.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Yeah. It's strange, but in Gaza, actually.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

We.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Buy money with money.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

There's not enough cash in Gaza. Right. So if you have money in the bank, you have to find other people in Gaza who happen to have a lot of cash on them that they sell. People are calling them cash brokers or money changers. And the fee is high.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

The exchange rate is 50%.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

So you show up to the money exchanger with 100 shekels, like in your bank, and you transfer it into his bank account like that?

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Yes. Right. And the money exchanger Give me 50 shekels.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

But you have shekels and you just need to turn them into bills in your hand shekels. Right. Not like numbers on your bank. And even that is a 50% fee.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Right before the war, if I go to the bank, want to take 100 shekel cash, I take 100 shekels. Yes.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

It's your money. Right?

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

You're right. Yes, that's right.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

But now cash in Gaza is so scarce that you will pay a huge markup for it.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

So we buy money with money.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Yeah, you do buy money with money. Spending that money, though, that's another challenge. Haya has $59 worth of shekels right now. Right. And yet she and her family do not eat often.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Like once a day, there is one meal. It's spaghetti. Most of what we eat is just carbohydrates, so it's without vegetable or fruit. Fruits have completely disappeared. Vegetables are almost gone. And when they appear, the price was expensive.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Okay. In some parts of Gaza, people can grow vegetables sometimes and sell them in makeshift markets. But a lot of what is being sold in Gaza is food and medicine and supplies that are coming in as aid, as donations from other countries. And Charities and some of that food and aid gets stolen and then sold when it was always meant to be given out for free. You are not supposed to sell humans humanitarian aid, which may be another reason people want to get paid in cash. Aladdin says these people are contributing to the starvation of their own people, but also getting the aid has become extremely dangerous. Though Israel has said that it has only fired warning shots near aid distribution sites, the UN Human Rights Office says that about 1400 Palestinians have been killed while trying to get food since May, nearly all by Israeli fire. So people collecting the aid are taking on a risk, and Aladdin says people are charging to take on that risk.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

Some people like even don't have someone to go to bring the aid, you know, because now who want to bring the food, he need to be like in really good shape and like ready to die. So they making it as a job.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

So Haya says shopping for food is about what has made it into Gaza, how much you're willing to risk to get it and how much you can pay. The war and resulting cash shortages have inflated prices.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

A kilo of tomatoes now cost us about $32.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

US$32 for like six tomatoes.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

One kilo.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

If she wants to buy sugar.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

If we want to buy sugar at.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Buy gram, sometimes I'll buy just a few grams for like $6.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Enough to our family, only to use once.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Over the spring, the price of cooking oil increased 1,200%. The price of flour 5,000% larger items like a tent.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Right now it's 30,000 shekels.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

30,000 shekels for a tent.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Wait, no, just minutes.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

That's not right.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

She says 3,000. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

I'm sorry.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

I'm really sorry.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

That's okay.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Yes, it's 3,000 shekels.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

3,000 shekels. US$900 for a tent. How much is like, I mean, can you buy, I don't know, milk right now?

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

By what milk? No, I don't know what milk.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Like you drink it.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Milk. Yeah, yeah, I got it. Yes. I'm sorry. Oh, Mal. Actually, my little sister Lian said to me, haya, if you find a milk, please buy for me. So when the interview finish, I. I will receive search for milk.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Haya has a little sister, Leanne, who she talks about all the time. She calls her my Leanne and Sarah, It's.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

She's just 10 years old.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

So Haya is going to try to find milk for her Lian, maybe powder milk, she says. And Doing this or doing anything in Gaza is dangerous. Haya says the Israeli military has killed so many people in her family, cousins, aunts, also her her best friend, a poetry professor she really cared about. And this is always in the back of Haya's mind.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Sure, I always scared to. I always scared from losing my family. And every morning I hug my mother, my father and mother, my sister, I hug my little sister, my layan Muhammad Raghad, and said to them, I love you.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

After Haya and I say goodbye, she goes off to try to find milk for her little sister, which is exactly the kind of thing that Aladdin and Muhammad try to find for other people in Haya's neighborhood. Great.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

Okay, so we need to buy the milk. Modi will buy the milk. I wrote the process as you see.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

After the break we follow the process how a single donation to their project makes it from the US or Europe or wherever to Modi in Gaza, from the Prince to the Maestro.

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[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Has drawn this flowchart to try to show me how they even start the process of buying milk. Like first just getting Israeli shekels into Gaza.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

I don't know if it will be chaos but like we will start from the bottom. Like there is a milk formula. Yeah you can see it.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Uh huh. Milk. Okay, so you have a. You did a little Drawing, it says, there's a little milk, and it says, buy milk. There are all these arrows pointing up and branching out to show all of the different stops that a single donation makes before the money is in Mohammed's hands. Ready to buy milk or buy diapers. Can I. Can I slow it down a little bit and start a little bit further back first before we do this?

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

Yeah.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Okay. You can put the paper down if you want.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

Okay, great.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Here's how Aladdin and Mohammed's operation works. Impossible Light has a website and a crowdfunding site, and they'll have all these different campaigns where they raise money for milk for children in Gaza or diapers, or to put up bathrooms, bring in water pipes. Mohammed the maestro is the one in Gaza who buys all of the supplies and hands them out. Al Din the Prince is the one in Belgium who gets Mohammed the money to pay for these things. Aladdin and his wife, actually Tammy, a self described white American from Alaska, go looking for anyone they know anywhere in the world who wants to donate money to their cause. The tricky part is getting the donations to Mohammad. And this is where all those bank accounts come in. Because you cannot easily or regularly walk into a bank in Belgium or the US Or Egypt and say, here, I'd like to deposit all of these donations into the account of this person I know in Gaza.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

No, no, you cannot. You cannot, you cannot.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

For almost two decades, Gaza has been run by Hamas, which is the US Israel and most Western countries consider a terrorist group. And there are a lot of rules against using banking systems to fund terrorism. So even before the Israel Hamas war, many banks shied away from just allowing people outside of Gaza to send remittances. Even recipients of aid from big humanitarian groups are vetted before money is sent. You can do it. I spoke to a Gazan American in the US who says she has wired money to Gaza many times through bank of America, but to relatives, she says you can do it pretty easily if you have the same last name or if you have paperwork to prove you're related. But there have been a few times, she says, when she's tried to send money to a cousin, an aunt with a different last name. And she says that money has been frozen and then sent back. And it's not the US bank that blocks the money transfers, she says it's not Israel that blocks it. It's the bank of Palestine, she says, where her relatives bank. When I asked for confirmation, a source at the bank of Palestine said, they try to facilitate as many transactions as they can. While still applying robust, strict measures on anti money laundering and counterterrorism financing in compliance with our regulators and international standards and international partners. And the Palestinian banking sector is known for this. They don't want to be accused of financing terrorism. So they are very strict about who gets to send money to whom.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

If you send for anyone inside Gaza, welcome to you here and the biggest headache in your life.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Aleldin says his bank in Belgium told him he could do a wire transfer to Gaza one time. And if you do manage to wire money to Gaza, there's a fee, right? The regular international wire transfer fee. But because there are already so many fees in Gaza, and because, you know, six tomatoes cost 30, 32 US dollars, Aladdin wants every penny left that he raises to go to helping people in Gaza. So he does not pay to wire money. Instead, Al Din swaps money. He does these deals with people all around the world who already have shekels in a Palestinian account, but don't need them because they are no longer living in Gaza.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

Like we always looking. And anyone has any money on any.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Palestinian bank account, you need to find people who have a Palestinian bank account already with shekels already in there.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

Yes.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Like, that's the trick. The trick is to trade them for those shekels. Like your shekels for my euros or pounds or yen or dollars, whatever currency they now use. Al Din will say, don't exchange your shekels for yellow euros or whatever. Give them to me. I will give you the equivalent in euros from all those donations we've been getting. Just transfer your shekels to my Palestinian bank account. Because Al Ad Din has a relative who evacuated Gaza but still has their Palestinian account. And that's the account they use for their project. He pulls that account up to show me a real deal that just went through.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

Like, now I can show you 150 shekels came to my relative bank account from someone Mustafa. Mustafa sent to us. 150 shekels.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Mustafa is in Egypt, but he had 150 Israeli shekels in a Palestinian account.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

But Mustafa can't use it in Egypt as shekels. He need Egyptian bound. I tell him, okay, I give you Egyptian bound and give me the 150.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Shekels and there's no exchange rate. It's. Is that the deal? Like, you don't charge him in exchange rate.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

He don't charge me. I don't charge him like this, no fees.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

150 shekel, by the way, is like 45 US dollars.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

So even a small little amount, 100 shekel, 150. We gather it.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

You know, there are lots of people like Mustafa, people who used to live or work in Gaza or the west bank who got paid in shekels and still have their Palestinian accounts. So Al Din basically collects those shekels sitting in Palestinian accounts and just kind of moves them around until I take.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

This shekel from our bank account and send it to Muhammad, my best friend inside Gaza. Palestinian bank account. You see the point?

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Al Al Din's Palestinian bank account is the key to his operation. Because when you transfer money from the Palestinian bank account of Mustafa in Egypt to the Palestinian bank account of Allah's relative who is in Turkey to Palestinian bank account of Muhammad, who is in Gaza, it's instant. And there are no transfer fees. It's all Palestinian bank accounts. Now, Aladdin assumes all of this is being watched and tracked, and he's fine with it. He says he is only sending money to Mohammed, a known trusted source, and Mohammed only uses it to buy things.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

You give people money like, I think many people will wonder, okay, but how we know that you don't give this money for terrorist people? You can expect this question, right? I'm giving food, I'm giving diabirs. Like, we have debors. I don't know how you can use the debirs.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Yeah. So once Alel Din in Belgium has transferred money to the bank account of his best friend Mohammed, who is in Gaza. Mohammed now has to get the money out of the account as cash when there are no functioning ATMs and go looking for flour and bread and tents. Mohammed is currently staying in a relative's house that is standing, but a lot of the exterior walls are gone. You can see into the neighbors, so it's always loud where he is.

[Mohammed Awad (Modi, The Maestro)]

The past years, I was living in a tent, but 20 days ago, the army came to our camp and destroyed everything, destroy our tents.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

There is a heaviness in Muhammad's voice that you will hear. It's kind of always there, except when you hear him with his kids, Ahmed and Maryam.

[Mohammed Awad (Modi, The Maestro)]

Maryam, Maryam.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

He calls Maryam my heart. Hi, Miriam. She's four. And when I ask her if she speaks any English, number two, she says, no, number two. And that's Ahmed. He's two.

[Mohammed Awad (Modi, The Maestro)]

I gave you a kiss.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Right now, Mohammed and Al Din are asking people to donate money for diapers in Gaza before the war, when Mohammed and his wife Wala were buying diapers for Maryam. Actually, he says they were paying like $6 for a pack of diapers. Now it's $75 for a pack. The inflation is partly driven by the shortage of supplies and partly driven by the cost of getting cash in order to buy things. Even if you can find someone who will accept a bank transfer for diapers, not cash, there's often a fee. Right now, NPR's producer Ngaza says the fee is 40% because whoever accepts a bank transfer will have to at some point pay a fee themselves to turn it into cash. And then there's the problem with the cash itself, the cash that's left in Gaza.

[Mohammed Awad (Modi, The Maestro)]

The money become hurts and destroyed. So when you offer it to a seller, they don't accept, become nothing, become worthless.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

There are now cash repair people who try to repair the worthless, tattered, falling apart bills, also for a fee. So Mohamed doesn't just need to find cash. He needs to find cash that is in good enough shape that people will accept it. He goes looking for the cash brokers that Haya told me about sometimes at makeshift markets. One time he remembers trying to buy winter clothes for people and he couldn't find someone to sell him cash for a while.

[Mohammed Awad (Modi, The Maestro)]

I stay maybe five days looking for someone to give me cash. Maybe, yes, maybe you need to make calls to search on Facebook.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Now, this market for cash behaves like any other market. The price for cash changes all the time. Depending on what's going on in Gaza, like when there's a ceasefire or when Israel lets in more food and aid, the fee for cash goes down. It can be below 20%. Because when food and aid is widely available and free, people don't need cash to buy it. When Israel does not let enough food in and food is scarce and therefore expensive, that's when people need more and more cash. And that's when the fees for cash skyrocket.

[Mohammed Awad (Modi, The Maestro)]

It's very hard to accept this way, to bring cash. But what else you can do? What else can you.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

But Allah told me that Mohammed is actually really good at negotiating better fees for shekels than whatever the going rate is at any given time. When we were all on a call together, Allah was like, tell her, tell Sarah about some of the deals we've made.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

Tell her about the last deal for Sheikhal. Actually, yes.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Yeah. What was the last deal you made?

[Mohammed Awad (Modi, The Maestro)]

Yeah, last time we buy it for I think 20% Allah or what?

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

So yeah, that was like a crazy good deal. Yeah, for sure.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

But even when Mohammed gets a good deal on cash, sometimes there's nothing to.

[Mohammed Awad (Modi, The Maestro)]

Buy for last four or five days. There is no Diapers in the markets, there's no diapers. So sometimes you have the money, but it's difficult to buy whatever you want.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Mohammed and Al Al Din say you can be the richest person in Gaza. It doesn't mean anything when there's nothing to buy. And this market for cash, this market for stolen aid, it wouldn't exist if Israel let in enough food or money, right? It exists because there are shortages. The UN has called the famine man made, which again, Israel rejects. The Israeli government has also rejected a new report commissioned by the UN Human Rights Office that says the Israel's policies meet the definition of genocide. The report says Israel is deliberately inflicting on the Gazan population conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction. Israel says the report is distorted, anti Semitic and that it relies on Hamas falsehoods. Al Din and Mohammed say they're continuing to do the little they can to help keep people alive. And for people in Gaza like Mohammed, they're in this weird place where they are cut off from the world, but they can still see online life going on as usual everywhere else. Like Mohammed's daughter maryam. She watches YouTube videos of cooking shows sometimes and she'll run up to her.

[Mohammed Awad (Modi, The Maestro)]

Dad yelling, me, I want this. I want this. I want this. It seemed delicious. I want this. Most of her ask about chocolate and I promise her and try to promise her to bring it.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

But at the markets near Mohammed right now, he says there's not even fruit, no vegetables, no meat, no cleaning supplies. And remember Haya? Haya who went looking for milk for her sister? She didn't find any milk that day. It's hard to get on the phone with Haya because her service is bad. When we talked, she had to go to a place with good Internet and once we even turned on our cameras for a bit so we could see each other's faces.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Nice to see you.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Actually, yeah, sorry, I'm in my closet. So sorry for the clothes all around me.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

It's nice. It's nice room.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Again, this window into the rest of the world to talk. Haya had to pay three shekels to charge her laptop on someone's solar panel and 15 shekel to use the Internet at this place that's two hours away from her camp. How did you get there? I walk Haya.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

No, no, it's fine. I am honored to share my story and open a window into a real life here in G. Gaza. How much of this?

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Hai has been sending videos of herself looking for food in Gaza, buying it.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Okay, cash just cash.

[Al Din Allah (The Prince)]

Voila.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Thank you telling me how much you paid that day.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

Just three tomatoes cost 21 shekels.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

And even before the war, Haya was majoring in English literature and minoring in translation at the Islamic University of Gaza. And she's still enrolled, just doing classes online now. She was actually studying for a midterm she had coming up.

[Haya (Gaza Resident)]

In fact, Sarah, I hold in to hope. Hope is the only thing Israel can't take from me. So there's a hope. Always hope for good future, hope for this war stop in one day. Hope for graduation like that. Rebuilding the Gaza Also.

[Sarah Gonzalez (Host, NPR Planet Money)]

Three weeks after Haya first went looking for milk, she messaged me to say she found some today's show was edited by Marianne McCune and fact checked by Ciara Juarez. It was produced by Sam Yellow Horse Kessler and engineered by Sina Lofredo, James Willits and Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. Special thanks to Jawad Rescala for interpreting and translating some of my interviews. Thanks also to Gada El Najjar, Raja Khaledi, Hattie amer, and to NPR's Daniel Estrin in Israel and Anas Baba in Gaza. And thanks to their editor, James Heider. I'm Sarah Gonzalez. This is npr. Thanks for listening.

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