The people of the Gaza Strip are fighting so desperately for their survival: “We have fallen back into the Stone Age.”

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With its terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, the radical Islamic Hamas caused a dramatic deterioration in the situation in the Gaza Strip. While the humanitarian situation in the enclave of about 2.2 million people was far from optimal before the attack, the people are finally living in misery after the Israeli counterattacks.

“We have fallen back into the Stone Age,” 23-year-old Namzi Mwafi told the New York Times. He, who graduated in computer engineering just a month before the war and dreamed of a life in Canada, now spends his days fetching water for the family.

Only if he is lucky will he come home with some water in the evening. His extended family, crammed into a two-room apartment near the Egyptian border, is forced to strictly ration water due to the shortage.

Families burn doors to cook

Israel responded to Hamas’ attack by imposing a complete blockade on Gaza. Initially, all aid deliveries were blocked, but some convoys have now been allowed through again. This is bad news for the local population, as they have since been almost completely cut off from water, food, electricity and fuel.

“If I used to have ambitions and hopes for a good future and the fulfillment of my dreams as a child, now my biggest ambition is to be able to eat, drink water and sleep,” says Mwafi.

There is little hope in sight at the moment as the situation in Gaza worsens by the day and is increasingly becoming a humanitarian catastrophe. Food and water have become luxuries. “Wheat flour, dairy products, cheese, eggs and mineral water have completely disappeared from the market,” said a spokeswoman for the UN World Food Program.

According to the organization, only 10 percent of the food needed in Gaza has reached the territory so far, leading to a massive food shortage and widespread hunger.

Aid deliveries are far from sufficient

According to UN aid agencies operating in Gaza, there is also a shortage of gas, firewood and coal. This leads some families in their distress to set fire to broken doors, shutters and frames, paper and grass to prepare a hot meal. Others avoid cooking altogether and instead eat raw onions or eggplant.

The four-day ceasefire brokered last Friday as part of a hostage agreement allowed dozens of trucks carrying water and other essential humanitarian supplies to reach the war zone. However, according to local aid organizations, aid deliveries are far from sufficient to meet people’s needs.

“All the children here are sick”

There is also a health crisis looming. The barely functioning sewage system and the enormous number of displaced people living in very small spaces in unsanitary refugee accommodations create a breeding ground for diseases. Children in particular are already suffering from diarrhea, scabies and lice.

«The toilets here are very bad. They are all blocked because we have no water,” Aya Ibrahim, 43, who was housed with her children in a UN school, told the New York Times. The conditions in the camp are terrible. “The smell is killing us.”

It sounds the same from other refugee accommodations. “All the children here are sick and have diarrhea and stomach ache,” reports 39-year-old Ahmed Khaled, who also found shelter with his family in a UN school complex.

But it is not clear whether they are still alive. About a week ago, the school in the northern part of the Gaza Strip was bombed. Surviving in the area has become a life-threatening, full-time job. (ced)

Source: Blick