As Gaza endures nearly nine months of relentless military onslaught from Israel, famine slowly tightens its grip on the territory. Palestinians spend countless hours in queues, waiting for spoons of cooked food and the chance to fill plastic containers with drinkable water.
While many shattered streets and overcrowded schools turned into shelters, there is hardly anything to queue for. The people, 90% of the Palestinians are driven away from their homes due to the bombardment and have a bleak future. Abdel Rahman Khadourah, a community elder, while searching for water in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, cries: “Water, food or any sort of drink is a dream; as you can see, we go long distances to search for scarce water. ”
This week, the Global Hunger Monitor revealed that despite all the efforts, the Gaza Strip remains on the High Risk of Famine list, as about 20 percent of the population is struggling with ‘catastrophe’ food insecurity. Four days ago, Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza said it had lost a child to malnutrition and dehydration on Wednesday.
This is evident in the UN-run school in Khan Younis, which has been converted into a shelter; Umm Feisal Abu Nqera cooks a limited portion of food for her six kids. That’s ‘shrimp sizzle,’ she blows out the flame, sitting cross-legged on the floor between mattresses as she prepares the ingredients, cutting tomatoes into the bowl, stirring beans in a small pan, and pressing ingredients in a mortar with a pestle. Her young daughters lie down helplessly close to her, and her husband is sorting a baby some liquefied lentils in a bottle.
This is what the lady had to say: “If this charity kitchen were not around to provide for us today, we would be wondering what we would have to eat today. ” It was due to the beans that were brought from the kitchen. Food prices are very high in Gaza, and her family has had no source of income anymore since the start of the war.
“We are living the worst days of our lives for famine and shortage,” she said; they compare their current standard of living with their days before the war when they could even provide good food for their children
and even give them some pocket money. “Today, your son looks at you, and you bleed from within because you cannot provide him with his most basic rights and the simplest needs for his life,” she added.
They endure a water shortage, which worsens their situation. This week, charity kitchen workers with their donkey carts passed through the debris of Khan Younis’ street, where people gathered to reach a UN school acting as a shelter. Using a paddle to mix the food in two large vats, they bordered big spoons to scoop yellow lentils for children, including those with pans to carry for their families.
As mentioned earlier, continuous military operations still occur between Israel and Palestinians, and the latter has recorded at least 37,765 deaths in the Gaza Strip. It has indeed evicted most people from their homes. Aid organisations have urged Israel to do more in helping let supplies into the Gaza Strip. A new report claims that over 495,000 people in Gaza are experiencing famine, which is characterised by hunger, weakness, and physical utter depletion.
Israel dismisses allegations of having placed the population living in Gaza in famine conditions, which it says was due to the inefficiency of the aid organisations and accused Hamas of embezzlement of the food aid, allegations that Hamas denied.
Holding a hose pipe at a water tanker on the road, Enayat Abu Hameed balances three large plastic tubs full of water on a two-wheel trolley. “With some, we wait up to four, five, or even six hours just to get water, and then we go back home,” she says before trying to drag the cart with a young boy in tow. The wheels sink in the sand as the front line sweats the challenges facing the people of Gaza.
However, the greatest strength that can be identified for the continued sustenance of the society in the face of adversity is the hope that the population of Gaza continues to fight for survival.
