Many Gazans eat only once a day

BY WAFAA SHURAFA and FATMA KHALED

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Yasmin Eid coughs and covers her face as she cooks a small pot of lentils over a fire fueled by twigs and scraps of paper in the tent she shares with her husband and four young daughters. The Gaza Strip.

It was their only Wednesday meal—it was all they could afford.

“My girls suck their fingers because of how hungry they are, and I pat them on the back until they sleep,” she said.

After being displaced five timesThe Eids live in central Gaza, where aid groups have relatively more access than in the north, which has been largely isolated and heavily damaged since Israel began waging a renewed offensive against Hamas in early October. But almost everyone in Gaza he is hungry these days. In the north say the experts a full-blown famine may be underway.

On Thursday, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, accusing them of using “Information as a method of war” — accusations Israel categorically denies.

In Deir al-Balah, the Eids are among hundreds of thousands sheltering in squalid tent camps. Local bakeries closed for five days this week. The price of a bag of bread climbed above $13 by Wednesday as bread and flour disappeared from the shelves before more supplies arrived.

The United Nations humanitarian office has warned of a “sharp increase” in the number of households facing severe hunger in central and southern Gaza. The amount of food that Israel has left in Gaza over the past seven weeks has dropped, now at near the lowest levels of the entire war.

Even less than that reaches the territory’s 2.3 million Palestinians at issue the many obstacles at the distribution, aid groups and the UN say – including Israeli army traffic restrictions, ongoing fighting, road damage and theft. Gunmen looted nearly 100 aid trucks last weekend in southern Gaza, close to Israeli military positions. Israel blamed Hamas but apparently took no action to stop the looting, while Hamas said it was the work of local thugs.

Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

For Eids, hunger is the daily routine

For months, Yasmin and her family went to bed hungry.

“Everything has gone up in price and we can’t buy anything,” she said. “We always go to bed without dinner.”

He misses coffee, but a single packet of Nescafe costs about $1.30. A kilogram (2 pounds) of onions costs $10, an average bottle of cooking oil for $15 – if available. Meat and chicken almost disappeared from the markets months ago, but there are still some local vegetables. Such sums are astronomical in a poor territory where few people earn regular income.

Crowds of hundreds of people are waiting for hours to get food from charities, which are also struggling.

Hani Almadhoun, co-founder of Gaza Soup Kitchen, said his teams can only offer small bowls of rice or pasta once a day. He said they “can go to the market one day and buy something for $5, then come back in the afternoon to find the price has doubled or tripled.”

His kitchen in the central city of Zuweida operated on a daily budget of about $500 for much of the war. When the amount of aid flowing into Gaza dropped in October, its costs rose to about $1,300 a day. It can feed about half of the 1,000 families that line up each day.

The sudden drop in aid and a US ultimatum

Israel says it does not impose limits on the amount of aid entering Gaza and has announced a series of measures it says are aimed at increasing the flow in recent weeks, including the opening of a new crossing.

But the military’s own figures show that the amount of aid entering Gaza fell to around 1,800 trucks in October, down from more than 4,200 the previous month. At the current rate of entry, about 2,400 trucks would enter Gaza in November. About 500 trucks entered each day before the war.

Israel blames UN agencies for failing to retrieve the aid, showing hundreds of trucks languishing on the Gaza side of the border. The UN says it is often unable to reach the border to pick up aid supplies because the Israeli army rejects requests to move and because of ongoing fighting and a breakdown in law and order. As a result, it says, only about half of the aid received is distributed.

The war began on October 7, 2023, when fighters led by Hamas stormed into Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping about 250. About 100 hostages are still in Gaza, at least a third of whom are dead, and Hamas. fighters repeatedly regrouped after Israeli operations, carrying out hit-and-run attacks from tunnels and bombings. buildings.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 44,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to local health authorities, who did not say how many of the dead were fighters.

The United States warned Israel in October that it could be forced to cut some of its crucial military support if Israel did not quickly increase the amount of aid entering Gaza. But after the 30-day ultimatum expired, the Biden administration refused to take any actionsaying there has been some progress.

Israel, meanwhile, passed a law severing ties with UNRWA. Israel accuses the agency of allowing itself to be infiltrated by Hamas – charges denied by the UN

Israeli news agencies have reported that officials are considering plans for the military to take over the distribution of aid or contract it out to private security companies. Asked about such plans on Wednesday, government spokesman David Mercer said “Israel is looking at many creative solutions to secure a better future for Gaza.”

Yoav Gallant, the former defense minister who was seen as a voice of moderation in the far-right government before being sacked this month, warned X that handing over aid distribution to a private firm was a “euphemism for the beginning of military rule.”

As this debate plays out in Jerusalem, less than 100 kilometers (60 miles) away from central Gaza, most Palestinians in the territory are focused on staying alive in a war with no end in sight.

“It’s hard for me to talk about the suffering we’re going through. I am ashamed to talk about it,” said Yasmin’s husband Hani. “What can I tell you? I am a person who has 21 family members and cannot give them a sack of flour.”

Khaled reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Originally published: Nov 22, 2024 at 11:23 am EST