Three months of relentless war have left the Gaza Strip virtually uninhabitable. The constant bombings and widespread destruction are just the tip of the iceberg in the tragic reality of 2.2 million Palestinians: while the dead pile up by the thousands, the living, almost all of them displaced, suffer from cold, epidemics and unbearable hunger.
The colossal offensive by air, land and sea of the Israeli Army against the Islamist group Hamas has left much of the enclave in ruins and two million Gazans have been forced to move south.r, despite the fact that the fighting also punishes that area.
The city of Rafah, next to the border with Egypt, is home to a million displaced people. Entire families – with children, the elderly, the sick and the disabled – have settled in improvised tents in the middle of winter, overcoming the floods caused by the rains, overcrowding, the power outage, but above all, hunger and thirst.
“The situation on the street has worsened and is becoming more difficult: a bag of potatoes worth one shekel now costs ten. Everything is expensive,” Ahmed Karam tells EFE, while wandering in a market.
“Everything is very unfair,” laments this man who is wearing a thick coat and who cannot afford a soda, a box of spaghetti, or a bag of potatoes.
The situation on the street has worsened and is becoming more difficult: a bag of potatoes worth one shekel now costs ten. everything is expensive
A few meters from him, hundreds of people stand in long lines, pushing and shouting, to get a bag of bread. Women and children form on one side, men on the other, but almost none of them are lucky. Those who manage to get something hide it under their clothes, in their lap, so that no one can take it from them.
At ground level, some sell cans of preserved food, while others push their carts between the destroyed buildings with tomatoes, pomegranates and peppers, but almost no one buys.
Israeli positions along the border with the Gaza Strip.
Uninhabitable
Gazans “face the highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded. Famine is just around the corner,” said Martin Griffiths, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs.
“For the children in particular, the last 12 weeks have been traumatic: No food. No water. No school. Just the terrifying sounds of war, day after day,” he added.
“Gaza has simply become uninhabitable. Its people are subject to daily threats to their very existence, while the world watches,” he deplored in a report.
The war broke out on October 7 after an attack by the Islamist group Hamas against Israel, which left 1,200 dead, including 36 children, and 250 kidnapped.
Since then, the Israeli Army has detonated 65,000 tons of explosives over the Strip, causing nearly 23,000 deaths, including 10,000 children and 7,000 women, and more than 58,000 injuries, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Government.These figures could be much higher, considering that some 8,000 people are missing under the rubble.
Top view of a hallway in Al-Aqsa hospital, where patients and displaced people are forced to live. Gaza Strip, November 29, 2023.
The attack on Israel “was not a good decision, because our situation could not support any war. If it were a better situation, if we were a country like Egypt, we would say yes,” a Gazan tells EFE on condition of anonymity, lamenting the economic and humanitarian crisis that it is going through.
“The war was of no use to us, since we were born we have only lived in wars. How long? When will we live? We can't take it anymore,” he adds, ensuring that he does not rule out migrating to Egypt.
However, Gazans are prohibited from leaving the enclave, even if they have a visa to access another country. Departures are authorized in dribs and drabs, following an official evacuation request through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the third country, using diplomatic channels and embassies, in coordination with Israeli authorities.
The tragedy occurs amid the collapse of health services in the enclave: 30 hospitals and 53 health centers in the Strip were out of service, 121 ambulances were destroyed and 326 members of medical staff were killed.
The few clinics that continue to operate do so at minimum levels: the bed occupancy rate is 350%, they lack 60% of basic medical supplies and many of the patients are treated on the floor, without anesthesia.in the middle of waiting rooms packed with thousands of displaced people.
“Working conditions are disastrous due to interruptions in the supply of water and food, and the lack of security” in hospitals, said Medhat Abbas, spokesperson for the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Some 400,000 people contracted infectious diseases and of the 6,000 injured who need to be treated abroad, only 650 have been able to leave the enclave, while many premature babies and cancer patients are at risk of death.
“The humanitarian community has been left with the impossible mission of supporting more than 2 million people, even as its own staff are being killed and displaced, telecommunications outages continue, roads are damaged and convoys are shot at. “Griffiths lamented.
“Coming generations will never forget these 90 days of hell and attacks on the most basic precepts of humanity,” he warned, advocating for an immediate ceasefire.
EFE
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