Deir el-Balah, Gaza – “There is no more strong voice than hunger,” says the Arab proverb.
Now it has become a painful truth that surrounds us, approaching each passing day.
I never imagined that hunger could be more terrifying than bombs and murder. This weapon took us off guard, something that we had never thought would be more brutal than anything we met in this endless war.
It’s been four months without a single full meal for my family, nothing that even meets the basic needs of the Maslow hierarchy.
My days revolve around hunger. A sister calls to ask questions about the flour, and the other sends a message saying that everything they have is the lenses.
My brother returns empty -handed from his long search for food for his two children.
We woke up one day to the sound of our neighbor screaming in frustration.
“I go crazy. What’s going on? I have money, but there is nothing to buy, ”she said when I got out to calm her down.
My phone keeps ringing. The calls come from women who cry that I met during work on the ground in travel camps: “Mrs. Maram? Can you help with something? A kilo of flour or something? … We haven’t eaten for days.”
This sentence resonates in my ears: “We haven’t eaten for days.” It is no longer shocking.
Famine walks forward in broad daylight, shamelessly in a world so proud of its “humanity”.
A second anniversary in the middle of rarity
Iyas woke up to ask for a cup of milk today, his birthday.
He had two years in the midst of a war. I wrote an article on her birthday last year, but now I look back and I think: “At least, there was food!”
A simple request from a child for milk makes me run in a whirlwind.
I had already had silent funeral in me weeks ago for the last of milk, then rice, sugar, bulgur, beans – the continuous list.
Only four bags of pasta, five of lenses and 10 precious kilos (22 lb) of flour remain – enough for two weeks if I ration closely, and even it makes me lucky than most in Gaza.
Flour means bread – people in white gold die every day.
Each cup that I add to the dough is heavy. I whisper: “Only two cups”. Then, I add a little more, then a little more, in the hope of stretching these small pieces in enough bread to last the day.
But I know I’m wrong. My mind knows that this will not be enough to suppress hunger; It makes me warn the little flour we have left.
I don’t know what I write anymore. But that’s exactly what I live, what I wake up and fall asleep.
What horrors remain?
I now think back to the morning bread manufacturing routine that I felt.
As a working mother, I hated this long process imposed by war once, which made me miss being able to buy bread at the bakery.
But now this routine is sacred. Thousands of people through Gaza wish to be able to knead endless bread. I am one of them.
Now, I manage the flour with respect, I knead gently, cut the breads thoroughly, move them and send them to cook in the public clay with my husband, who has the tray on his head with love.
A full hour under the sun in the oven to get a miche of hot bread, and we are among the “lucky”. We are kings, the rich.
These daily “miserable” routines have become dreams inaccessible for hundreds of thousands in Gaza.
Everyone is hungry. Is it possible that this war has even more horrors in store?
We complained about the trip. Then our houses were bombed. We never returned.
We complained about the burden of cooking on a fire, the manufacture of bread, hand washing and water transport.
Now these “burdens” look like luxury. There is no water. No soap. No supplies.
Iyas’ latest challenge
Two weeks ago, while being consumed by thoughts on how to stretch the last handles of flour, another challenge appeared: the Iyas of Pot Training.
We lacked diapers. My husband searched everywhere, returning empty -handed.
“No diapers, no baby formula, nothing at all.”
Like that.
My God, how strange and difficult the first years of this child were. The war has imposed so many changes that we could not protect it.
His first year was an endless hunt for babies, clean water and layers.
Then came famine, and he grew up without eggs, fresh milk, vegetables, fruit or one of the basic nutrients that a child needs.
I fought, sacrificing the little health that I had to continue breastfeeding so far.
It was difficult, especially while under all of me and trying to continue working, but what can I do else? The idea of raising a child without nutrients at this critical stage is unbearable.
And so my little hero woke up one morning in a challenge to disconcert the diapers. I pity him, looking at fear at the siege of the toilet, which looked like a deep tunnel or a cave in which he could fall. It took us two whole days to find a child’s seat for the toilet.
Every day was filled with training accidents, signs that he was not ready.
The hours I spent sitting near the toilet, encouraging, were exhausting and frustrating. Pot training is a natural phase that should come when the child is ready.
Why follow me and so many mothers here forced to browse him like that, under mental pressure, with a child that I did not have the chance to prepare?
So I fall asleep thinking about the amount of food that we have left and wake up to rush my child in the toilet.
Rage and anxiety accumulate as I try to manage our precious water supply while soiled clothes accumulate daily accidents.
Then came the expulsion orders to Deir el-Balah.
A fresh slap. The danger increases as Israeli tanks are getting closer.
And here I am: hungry, out of the diapers, raising my voice on a child who cannot understand while the bombardment is composed around us.
Why do we have to live like that, the spirits disintegrating every day when we expect the next disaster?
Many have used begging. Some have chosen death for a piece of bread or a handful of flour.
Others stay at home, waiting for the tanks to arrive.
Many, like me, simply wait for their turn to join the ranks of hungry without knowing what the end will look like.
They said time in Gaza is made of blood. But now it’s blood, tears and hunger.
