The bombings continue on Gaza. The humanitarian situation is critical and residents are struggling to find food.
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Finding something to feed his two children, his wife and himself is the daily mission of Yousef Amash, a 31-year-old Palestinian director displaced in southern Gaza. “It’s very hard to find anything in the market, because of the number of people who have arrived in Rafah. Everything is rare, everything is almost impossible to find. So from now on, we only live with what we find”, he explains. On the 66th day of war, bombings and ground fighting continue and the humanitarian situation is worsening. For civilians, it is a continual search for food, which is running out. “I have never witnessed such scenes in 20 years in Gaza”regretted Corinne Fleischer, regional director for the Middle East of the World Food Program (WFP), visiting the enclave the weekend of December 9 and 10.
Some people knock on doors to find some food but there are only peppers, bread and a few citrus fruits collected from trees. In supermarkets there is no more flour, eggs or biscuits, and the price of food has risen exponentially. Three kilos of salt cost the equivalent of 50 euro cents, now it’s 20 euros.
So, explains Aya, a Gazan in Khan Younes, many, like her brother, can no longer afford anything. “They do not have the choice, she explains. They have no more food, nothing. You know, my brother worked in Israel but they took his salary when they sent him back to Gaza. So he has nothing left.”
It is therefore a new phase of the war that is beginning, believes Bisan Owda, a young Gazoui journalist, on her Instagram account: the war of survival, the war to find something to eat. “We are going to die here because of hunger. They will not kill us, they will not even pay for the bombs that will kill us: we will die alone!”, she worries. According to the World Food Program, nine In ten households in Gaza go days and nights without eating, some for ten days last month. And 97% don’t have enough food.