In the crowded Gaza Strip city of Rafah, a small garment factory making cotton-filled cloth diapers is helping desperate parents of babies obtain basic necessities.
RAFA, Gaza Strip — Their scissors move quickly, cutting strips of white cloth to be sewn together with cotton pads and shipped to market in tattered cardboard boxes.
By the end of the day, Palestinian seamstresses will have sewn 500 diapers and distributed them to war-weary parents in the besieged enclave for about $4 per pack of eight. This is half the price of disposable diapers, which are mass-produced in Japan.
Garment factory manager Maser Katati knows his production volume has little impact on the huge demand, but his small business is thriving and creating jobs.
“People were looking for Pampers, but they couldn't find them,” she said from a bustling workshop in Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city. “They were queuing up at merchants and buying it at very high prices.”
The war between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers has caused a humanitarian catastrophe, causing shortages of the most basic necessities and driving up the prices of basic goods. The situation is hitting parents of young children especially hard. The market price of diapers in the Gaza Strip has risen more than 10 times since the pre-war period.
Some 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are crammed into apartments and tent camps in this city on the border with Egypt as Israeli warplanes swoop overhead. Israeli attacks in the area have killed more than 28,600 Palestinians and caused a humanitarian catastrophe of unimaginable proportions. The Israeli military maintains that Hamas is responsible for civilian casualties and suffering and that Rafah is its next target.
Sporadic aid deliveries, hampered by Israeli restrictions and relentless fighting, are exacerbating an already dire situation. At makeshift stalls, older children working as hawkers sell diapers for 3 to 5 shekels ($1 to $1.50) each, or up to 200 shekels ($55) for entire packs of 50. I will sell it.
In some cases, parents say they have resorted to cloth diapers, which can get dirty easily. However, they are difficult to clean when water is very scarce. The disposable diapers made in Katati's sewing factory have been improved thanks to cotton pads.
“People can't feed their children,” said Imad Abu Alara, who sells diapers at the market. “This factory is an alternative to this problem and is much cheaper.”
The war broke out on October 7 in response to a deadly Hamas attack on southern Israel, with the militants killing about 1,200 people and pulling 250 hostages back to Gaza.
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Associated Press writer Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
