A frail Palestinian boy demonstrates with other children, asking for the salaries of their parents to be paid. On his chest, the text reads: "I am hungry." Paychecks have been rare since Israel's embargo of the Palestinian government. (Hatem Omar, Maan Images)

For the last week, Zidan Abu Reziq has been sleeping outside, next to his plantings on a small square of sand he expropriated.

The Abu Reziqs, like many of the large, destitute refugee families in this shrapneled, tumbledown slum, need to plant to eat. They took the land and planted it with vegetables, an investment of about $50, most of the money that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency gave them to buy school uniforms for the children.

Zidan's wife, Tamam, admits her 51-year-old husband sleeps with his plants because he needs to protect their investment in the lawless chaos of Gaza, where his own small theft of land, 20 square yards that belongs to the government, is dwarfed by the huge expropriations by gangs and families and militia groups that have taken over much of the best land left behind when the Israelis pulled out their settlers a year ago.

It is difficult to exaggerate the economic collapse of Gaza, with the Palestinian Authority cut off from funds by Israel, the United States and the European Union after Hamas won the legislative elections on Jan. 25.

Since then, the authority has paid most of its 73,000 employees here, nearly 40 percent of Gaza's work force, only 1.5 months' salary, resulting in a severe economic depression and growing signs of malnutrition, especially among the poorest children.

Few here are using the United Nations grants for school. The Abu Reziqs are carefully investing the rest of their relief money. More than $20 went straight to the local grocer, Tamam said, as a down payment on the credit extended to the family, which still owes more than $200. About $11 went to buy the ingredients, including two chickens, for the couscous dish that Tamam and her daughter, Fatma, 29, are making early this morning, kneading relief agency flour in big aluminum bowls, pouring in relief agency oil, rubbing the flour over a screen to get the right consistency.

The result will serve 15 people, Tamam said. "We want to feed the people who helped us with the land," she said, and some of their neighbors, even worse off than they.

Related stories Analysis: Palestinians to have new gov't The quest for a peacemaker Gaza Strip: Situation Report

Gaza's situation has worsened since Palestinian gunmen, including those from Hamas, killed two Israeli soldiers and captured a third on June 25. Israel reinvaded Gaza, and has since killed more than 240 Palestinians, many of them in gun battles.

An Israeli airstrike on Gaza's only electrical power plant means that most Gazans now get only 7 to 12 hours a day of electricity, at unpredictable hours, with running water largely dependent on electric pumps.

Fishermen, now prevented from going more than a few hundred yards from shore by the Israeli Navy, are using hand-thrown nets from the beach to catch a few sprats and sardines.

Jan Egeland, the United Nations under secretary for humanitarian affairs, said that Gaza was "a ticking time bomb." The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development warned Tuesday that the economy could shrink next year to the level of 15 years ago, and unemployment could rise to over 50 percent. The World Bank expects gross domestic product to decline by 27 percent this year.

These pressures have forced Hamas to agree to a proposal by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, for a national unity government, led by the Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniya, which could allow Israel and the West to resume transferring funds and aid.

The Abu Reziqs are hopeful, like many Palestinians, that a new government will be better, but they are reluctant to blame Hamas, which, Zidan said, "was never given a chance to succeed." Still, it is unclear whether the new government, when there is one, will be seen to meet Western demands that it recognize Israel, forswear violence and accept previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.

Hamas promised security in its victorious election campaign. But it has failed at that, said Hamdi Shaqqura of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. "There is security chaos and no respect for law," he said, and a prime reason is the involvement of the police and security forces, many of them from Fatah, in the lawlessness, and the constant clashes with militia and gunmen affiliated with Hamas.

"People who are supposed to protect the law are the people who break it," he said, "and no one is brought to justice." For this chaos, he said, "I must blame the Palestinian Authority," not Israel.

Tamam, 49, recalls a near riot here when cooking gas was in short supply and there was a delivery of canisters. The police were called, she said. "They took canisters for themselves and then left," she said, shrugging.

Zidan used to work in the nearby Israeli settlement of Neve Dekalim. But after the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000, he was not allowed to enter the settlement. Now, Zidan is lucky to get three days a month of casual construction work.

To read the full article, please visit the New York Times' website.