GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Shaima al-Amoudi tries to maintain the insulated room on her rooftop in the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. She prevents light from entering the room as much as possible, and keeps the humidity high, in an effort to succeed in cultivating mushrooms to improve her family’s financial situation.

Amoudi, a mother of seven, began planting mushrooms nearly two years ago. “My husband does not have a stable job," she told Al-Monitor. "He works on and off, which provides an income of no more than 500 Israeli shekels [$120] per month. Due to the lack of better job opportunities that would contribute to the improvement of our income, I began to grow and sell mushrooms to restaurants.”

Growing mushrooms is one of the very few options women in Gaza have to face poverty and unemployment that has been prevalent ever since the imposition of the Israeli siege on Gaza in 2007. Doing such work to earn a living does not require much capital, and the production cycle is short, which contributes to a faster profit, according to economic expert Samir Hamattu. In addition, mushrooms are easy to plant and sell.

“There are several reasons why women were forced to break into the labor market through individual projects such as mushroom cultivation, to help support their families," Hamattu told Al-Monitor. "Deterioration of families' financial income plays a major role, in addition to the Israeli wars that have turned thousands of workers into unemployed individuals while hundreds of families lost their main breadwinner.”