Gaza war
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip: Children go to sleep hungry
Numerous children in the Gaza Strip are currently suffering from hunger. photo
© Mohammed Talatene/dpa
Although more aid supplies are now coming to the Gaza Strip, the people living there report catastrophic conditions.
Saher Ramlawi, who says he comes from Shejaiya, a district of the city of Gaza in the north of the coastal region, fled to Rafah in the south because of the war with his wife and their five children. There they live in a makeshift tent.
The family only eats one meal every day, Ramlawi said. “This includes some pieces of bread and canned goods such as beans and some beef.” The father of the family said he had lost twelve kilograms of weight since the outbreak of the war. He and his relatives therefore have no access to clean drinking water, which is very expensive. That’s why he either drinks donated water or sometimes the salty and unhealthy groundwater.
Mother: My children only eat once a day
A woman living in a tent in Deir al-Balah told dpa that her children had already become ill because of the lack of food and water. “To get something to eat, I wait in a long line at the UNRWA school,” said Hajam Abu Samra. There she receives canned goods, cookies and some water. “But they don’t give you wheat flour to make bread.” Food prices have risen dramatically since the war. “I don’t have money to buy food or water,” she said. Even the children only eat once a day. “Most of the time they sleep hungry.”
UNRWA is the abbreviation for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
In the wake of the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip, the humanitarian situation in the sealed-off coastal strip is becoming increasingly catastrophic. The United Nations recently warned that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are starving to death. A study by several UN agencies and other institutions on Thursday concluded that 577,000 people in the sealed-off coastal strip fall into the most severe category of hunger. Almost all residents are affected by hunger or displacement.
Although more trucks with aid goods are now coming into the Gaza Strip again, aid organizations say they cannot distribute the goods everywhere because of the ongoing fighting.