Every day, Batoul Zoarab (38) desperately wonders how she will get food. “There is no water, bread or flour. We have to share a can of beans or a pack of feta cheese with six people. Once I was given a bottle of water,” says the woman, who lives in the southern border town of Rafah, where more than a million displaced Gazans often live in makeshift tents around the city. There is an acute shortage of food and water. “If relief supplies reach us at all, it is only once or twice a week.”
In the north of the Gaza Strip, where thousands of people still remain among the rubble of the heavily bombed Gaza City, the situation is even more worrying than in the south. Here, grass and leaves are eaten out of desperation, and bread is made from animal feed.
Hossam Abu Safiya, director and pediatrician of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City, sees patients coming in who are seriously weakened by food shortages. “Seven children have already died in the hospital due to hunger,” he says in audio messages NRC.
The hospital is in danger of being completely out of service due to a lack of electricity and medical resources. On images of the children's ward in the hospital, which were taken earlier this week by journalist Ebrahem Musalam, showed how the electricity was constantly cutting out. “Every moment in northern Gaza a child dies from dehydration and hunger,” says Musalam.
On Thursday morning, the arrival of a convoy of trucks carrying flour in Gaza City led to a stampede of hungry civilians, after which Israeli soldiers opened fire on them, leaving many dead and injured. There are fears that the continued absence of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas will further increase the food shortage in Gaza. Already, according to UN officials, more than a quarter of the 2.3 million inhabitants are “just one step away” from famine.
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Canned food
Mahmoud Nairab of the Palestinian Red Crescent says it is very difficult to distribute aid due to Israeli restrictions and the lack of protection of the trucks. In addition, the trucks heading north are late returning to the border crossing due to Israeli inspections at checkpoints, or because people desperate from hunger climb onto the trucks. Many trucks were also damaged as a result.
Aid is also scarce in the south. “We mainly eat canned food. But if you eat it for more than a month, it will make you sick,” said Karam, an English teacher from Khan Younis who fled to Rafah with his family. For security reasons, he does not want his surname in the newspaper. “My children also often ask for meat, but we cannot afford it at all.”
Photos AFP
There is also a dire shortage of safe drinking water. “We get water from Egypt,” says Karam, “but it is not real drinking water. After drinking that for a week, you start to get stomach aches, headaches and diarrhea. It's expensive too.” In some places there is no drinking water at all and people have to drink salt water, which makes them sick.
65-year-old Feryal Ahmad comes from the northern town of Beit Hanoun. She settled in Rafah with her children and grandchildren. They now share one room there with fifty people. “I am sick and can't even make a cup of tea,” she says. “Every now and then we can bake a small loaf of bread on a fire and then save half for the evening.” As she tells her story, another woman in the background says: “We are hungry.”
According to Nairab, there are only 120 trucks in Gaza that can deliver relief supplies, not nearly enough for the needy population. Due to the ongoing Israeli bombings, a large part of the agricultural land has now also been destroyed.
Before Israel launched a war in Gaza in retaliation for the October 7 Hamas attack, an average of about 500 trucks carrying aid arrived in the Gaza Strip every day. The economic situation in the occupied Gaza Strip had been very bad for years due to the Israeli-Egyptian blockade since 2007: two-thirds of the population relied on food aid, according to the World Food Program.
Aid was dropped by planes in the south of Gaza last week with the cooperation of Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. Thousands of people gathered on the beach and entered the water when some of them landed in the sea. Aid was also dropped in the north by the Jordanian air force. It is not clear exactly how the air assistance is coordinated.
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The war and increasing hunger also cast a dark shadow over Ramadan, the Islamic fasting month that will start around March 10. “The atmosphere during Ramadan is always peaceful and full of joy,” said Nermin Alagha, who also fled to Rafah from Khan Younis. “But now we don't have the comfort of our home and our families, but we are in a tent. This Ramadan will be full of sadness, especially if there is no ceasefire.”
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in Rafah
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