TUFFAH, Gaza Strip — When the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip intensified in 2008, people with gluten intolerance, including celiac disease, lost access to gluten-free wheat imported via the Israeli border crossings. Gluten-free wheat is a staple for thousands of people with gluten intolerance around the world. With necessity as the mother of invention, after five years of investigation, two researchers from Gaza succeeded in producing gluten-free wheat in July 2015. Gluten, a substance consisting of two proteins, is present in cereal grains such as wheat. It gives dough its elasticity.

One of the researchers, Mohammed al-Askalani, chairman of the Department of Scientific Research and Community Service at Al-Isra University in Gaza, told Al-Monitor, “The idea behind gluten-free wheat production is that this staple food is a human need for many patients with autism or celiac disease in the Gaza Strip. We produce gluten-free wheat as a substitute for the imported product, which is often scarce in the local market due to the blockade and, if available, is sold at high prices that do not suit the patients’ economic situation.” Some people believe that a gluten-free diet positively affects the behavior of children with autism. 

Another factor driving this development is that the wife of Abdel Fattah Qarman, Askalani's research partner, suffers from gluten intolerance, a condition that her physicians in Gaza were at pains to diagnose. Qarman told Al-Monitor, “My wife suffered from osteoporosis, acute anemia and emaciation. She was examined by an orthopedist, an internist and then a kinesthesiologist. She also underwent blood tests, but doctors could not identify her disease, which remained undiagnosed for three years, because the symptoms of wheat allergy intersect with about 55 other diseases.”

Qarman further explained, “Wheat allergy makes young people walk like a 90-year-old person [if they regularly ingest gluten]. Gluten, which is in ordinary flour, is what affects people with wheat sensitivity. This is what my then-25-year-old wife suffered from. She was diagnosed by a medical committee at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City following numerous tests.” Qarman added, “When my wife was diagnosed, she started the treatment journey by following a diet excluding wheat and its derivatives and gluten-containing flour, oats and sugars.”