Gaza famine ‘around the corner’ as refugees speak of winter despair under makeshift shelters
Hungry and condemned to life in squalid conditions, refugees in Gaza’s overcrowded camps said that they face starvation.
About 85 per cent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced from their homes since the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war in October.
Last week, UN humanitarian co-ordinator Martin Griffiths said famine in Gaza was “around the corner”, while on Sunday, two US senators visited Rafah, where they saw hundreds of aid lorries delayed by what they described as arbitrary Israeli inspections.
Haneen Ibraheem, 35, fled to Rafah from Gaza city with her two children. She is struggling in the harsh winter weather in the camps. Downpours and flooding seep into tents and makeshift shelters.
“It is so cold. I do my best to warm my children, but even so my children keep telling me that they are feeling cold,” she told The National. “Also, we are sick from pollution, where you can’t be sure of the cleanness around you. We have canned food, but even still we get sick all the time.”
The UN has sent winter blankets to the camps in places like Al Mawasi, purportedly a safe zone but windswept and barren. UN staff said only a fraction of assistance sent reaches the civilians.
On top of all this, no part of the strip has been safe from Israeli attack.
According to the UN, approximately half of the population of the Gaza Strip is now living in Rafah – about one million people in a city that was home to about 280,000 before the war.
Many Palestinians in the crowded city are struggling to find shelter for the winter. There is no space but there is plenty of despair.
“There are families of six members who receive one can of beans and two bottles of water every three days, and we see hunger spreading in every street, and people are looking
for a loaf of bread,” said Adnan Abu Hasna, a spokesman for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees.
“The humanitarian aid reaching Gaza is not enough to meet 5 per cent of the population’s needs,” he added.
Ahmed Abu Aouda, 43, who has fled to Rafah, lives in a tent with his family.
He left Gaza city and went to Khan Younis, a city that has become the latest focal point of Israel’s military campaign.
Like Rafah, its population has swollen by hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were forced out of the north of the Gaza Strip.
When the shelling intensified, he left Khan Younis and went to Rafah, staying in an open area near the heavily militarised Egyptian border.
He said that even maintaining the tent where his family lives has become unaffordable. Just to get sandbags to protect the tent cost him 800 Israeli shekels ($215).
Another Gazan said she has fled to Al Mawasi, where she lives in a tent built by her sons.
“Before, we used to pray for God to bring rain but with our current situation we are afraid of the rain,” Umm Ali Hassouna, 42, told The National.
She said she was ill, and her conditions had worsened because of the cold.
“My sons do their best to keep me warm all the time, by lighting the charcoal which is not healthy also because sometimes I feel suffocated,” she said.
Aid organisations have struggled to deliver sufficient aid to Palestinians to survive the bleak conditions.
Mr Abu Aouda said he had received just three blankets and two mattresses from UNWRA, to be shared among nine people inside his tent.
“When we left Gaza [city] it was summer so we didn’t bring warm clothes or blankets, and now if those things are available it is so expensive,” he said.
“It is very cold and I spent all the time just trying to make my children warm.”