The meals that families are capable of obtaining are poor nutritious – thin broths, lenses or rice, a piece of bread or sometimes just a combination of herbs and olive oil known as duqqa.
Adults regularly jump meals to leave more for children, the elderly and the sick. And yet, on average since January, 112 children have been admitted daily for acute malnutrition.
“” [When my children wake up at night hungry] I tell them: “drink water and close my eyes”. It breaks me. I do the same – I drink water and pray for the morning, “as a parent said.
Risk lives for food
Due to these extreme food shortages, the inhabitants of Gaza are forced to risk their lives daily to access small amounts of food. Since May 27, 549 Palestinians have been killed and 4,066 have been injured while trying to access food, according to the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Gaza.
“The majority of victims have been killed or bombed by trying to reach Israeli American distribution sites based in militarized areas,” said Johnathan Whittall, head of the Office for the United Nations Humanitarian Affairs Agency, OCHA, in occupied Palestinian territories.
Since the end of May, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has supported the United States.
The UN said that the Palestinians who are asking for help from the GHF are threats of shots, bombing and stamps.
“We don’t want to be there. But what choice do we have? Our children cry for food. We don’t sleep at night. We walk, wait and hope we will come back, ”said a Palestinian Wfp.
The water is delivered to gasans reflecting in a school in UNRWA.
Systems near the collapse
Prolonged conflicts and bombing have pushed almost all service systems in Gaza at the edge.
Due to the fuel shortage, only 40% of drinking water installations are functional and 93% of households are faced with water insecurity.
The fuel shortage also negatively affects the provision of medical services with medical equipment and storage of drugs dependent on electricity.
For the first time since the resumption of limited assistance on May 19, nine trucks containing medical items have unloaded supplies on the Israeli side of Kerem Shalom Crossing on Wednesday.
Moved, again and again
Since the resumption of Israeli bombing in Gaza on March 18 after a 42-day ceasefire, more than 684,000 Palestinians have been moved. And for almost all, this is not the first time.
With more than 82% Gaza designated as an Israeli militarized area or in a movement order, there are few places – even less safe places – than the newly moved can go.
They were forced to take refuge in overcrowded travel camps, makeshift shelters, damaged buildings and sometimes just in open streets. Schools are no longer learning buildings but refuge.
A member of UNRWA of staff inspects has destroyed the infrastructure.
“Schools have transformed into empty shelters, devoid of all the elements of a safe learning environment,” said Kamla, teacher at the United Nations Rescue and Work Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Middle East (UNRWA) in Nuseirat.
According to Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for the Secretary General.
“No shelter equipment has entered Gaza since March 1, before the Israeli authorities imposed a complete blockade for help and any other supply for almost 80 days,” he said during a briefing June 19.
“While some products were later authorized in small quantities, tents, wood, tarpaulins and any other shelter remain prohibited.”
The UN and its partners have 980,000 shelter items prepared to ship to Gaza once the authorities granted by the Israeli authorities.
‘Symbols of hope’
Since the start of violence in Gaza, UNRWA has continued to work tirelessly to provide the displaced and injured Palestinians with many types of support.
“Despite all this, the eyes and hopes of our community remain fixed on us. UNRWA staff are not just service providers. In the eyes of people in Gaza, we are pillars of resilience, lines of stability and symbols of hope, “said Hussein, a UNRWA worker in Gaza City.
A UNRWA worker is wearing a young boy in Gaza.
But as fuel shortages continue and only small quantities of humanitarian aid – food, medicine, shelter materials – flow through the Kerem Shalom cross -border passage, the work of UNRWA workers and other humanitarian workers in Gaza is more and more untenable.
“We have lost all the tools necessary to work, so we had to adapt,” said Neven, a psychosocial worker from UNRWA in Khan Younis.
Dspite their best efforts, the bombing and devastation of Gaza continue with children who are hungry and some even expressing suicidal thoughts.
“I told my daughter that her deceased father was safe, eat and drink with God,” said a mother. “Now she cries every day and said,” I’m hungry and I want to go see my father because he has food to feed us. »»
Publicado anteriormente en Almouwatin.
