“I try to get the children to eat less. The price of food has almost doubled,” teacher Montaser al-Halabi tweeted on Sunday afternoon from Gaza.
Jerusalem
At 48 years old By Montaser al-Halab has a wife and five children to feed, the oldest of whom is 19 and the youngest nine. He says that you have to wait five hours for bread and three hours to charge your phone. The family has water in canisters.
“We haven’t received any help,” he says from Gaza. HS reached al-Halab on Sunday from Jerusalem in the Whatsapp message service.
For example, the flour from aid shipments has been taken directly to bakeries, which reportedly sell bread a little cheaper than usual. The UN reported on food theft on Sunday.
Montaser al-Halabi fled Gaza City more than two weeks ago. He put the mattresses on the roof of his car.
The Al-Halab family is temporarily living in an acquaintance’s apartment near the Rafah border crossing. They may have to move if the owner of the apartment has to evacuate his family to Rafah. People live on the streets, in the courtyards of hospitals and in the schools of the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA.
Al-Halab’s family left their home in the Gaza City of Rafah more than two weeks ago in the hope that the south would not be bombed. Rafah has been bombed continuously, most recently the night before Saturday.
There are also losses in close circles. Al-Halabi tells about someone he knows who worked in the IT industry Adel-, who was known as a calm and nice guy. The man’s house was hit, and his entire family, as well as his siblings’ families and grandparents, died.
According to al-Halab, the family is doing reasonably well compared to many others. The atmosphere is fearful and worried. “I can’t show weakness or despair in front of children,” she says.
Pedestrians pass a destroyed building in Rafah, southern Gaza.
Al-Halabi works as a teacher at the teacher training institute of Azhar University in Gaza. The university has a three-year Olive teacher training project with the universities of Helsinki and Eastern Finland. Finland donated laboratory equipment to the university during the summer. The university was hit in the bombing and al-Halab’s office was destroyed. At least some of the equipment donated by Finland has been destroyed.
Al-Halabi has been to Finland twice, in March 2022 and August 2023, the latter trip lasting two and a half weeks.
“I got to know many educational institutions in Joensuu, Helsinki and other cities,” he says.
Al-Halabi says he has nothing to do with Hamas and wants to stay completely away from politics.
in Gaza some things work. At least 15 ATMs were in operation on Sunday afternoon, so money could be withdrawn. Foreign embassies have not been able to deliver aid money to their citizens. There are seven Finns in Gaza. The Finnish authorities were last in contact with some of them today, Sunday.
Montaser al-Halabi asks his children to eat less, because there is a shortage of food.
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