Gaza- Like a child filled with desire and amazement, Hala Asfour closed her eyes before opening them to a “bread loaf” that her fiancé, Mohamed Salama, struggled to obtain, and for her it was not “just a loaf of bread…it is the first gift since our engagement last month, and the most precious, and it will remain stuck in my memory forever.” .
“Indeed, bread is the most precious gift in times of war and famine,” says Hala, a journalist working in the field that brought her together with Muhammad. From there, they were bound by a pact of love and carved out a space for joy in the midst of their work in pursuing news and stories of death and destruction. Perhaps if the two young journalists had chosen a title for their engagement, it would have been: “In this way.” “The earth is what is worth living.”
Hala slept the night before the gift, hungry, due to the lack of bread and flour for her family displaced from the east of the city of Khan Yunis to the Al-Mawasi area in its west. She told Tel Aviv Tribune Net: “I told Muhammad during a phone call between us at the end of a hard day’s work that I would now go to sleep hungry, as we do not have bread or Anything available to eat, and that was the seventh day in a row without tasting bread.”
Muhammad (24 years old) was overcome with anxiety and spent his night thinking about Hala (23 years old) suffering from hunger, but “the options are non-existent in light of the famine, war and siege… and I felt as if I was restricted and unable to do anything as darkness fell,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune. net.
Mission impossible
Previous Muhammad Sunrise At dawn, he headed to the only bakery in the city of Khan Yunis for the “bread loaf,” which for the majority of Gazans has become an “unobtainable dream,” and they struggle daily to obtain it. The majority of bakeries in the southern Gaza Strip have closed their doors, and flour has disappeared from the market. Markets.
After long hours and in the afternoon, the “impossible mission” was crowned with success, and Muhammad obtained a “bread bundle” that only suffices a family of 5 people for one day. With a smile, Hala says that Muhammad’s mission did not end with obtaining the bundle, but he worked hard to hide it from “the hungry eyes.” And those in need, so that it can reach me safely,” and to avoid any embarrassment that might lead to its loss amid everyone’s desperate need for bread.
Muhammad hid “the precious gift inside the bag of press equipment,” and says: “I was hugging the bag as if it contained a treasure, and I wanted the wind to carry me quickly when she was the one who slept hungry that night.”
In the work car, the two lovers met with “gifted bread,” and Hala says: “Muhammad called me eagerly: Come quickly, I brought you a gift, and I dressed in a hurry, and eagerness and astonishment filled my heart like a little girl… What can he give me? And we are in a war that has deprived us of the simplest things.” Things, there are no flowers, no clothes, and people can barely find anything to keep them alive.”
Muhammad took the bag and asked me to close my eyes. What would come out of a bag containing cameras? Is it a special photo that he took and he wants to share his joy with me? Hala’s confusion did not last long until she opened her eyes to the bundle of bread, and said: I picked it up from his hands and embraced it with “a tear and a smile.” She added: “My journalistic sense was not absent from this special moment, and I asked Muhammad to take a picture of me with the loaf of bread to document it as the first gift after the engagement, and the most precious.” In times of war and famine.
Hala published this picture with poignant words in which she expressed her feelings at that moment, saying: “Love in wartime has its different rituals, and Muhammad proves day after day that he deserves my heart and to share my life. He gives me preference over himself and shares everything with me, even if it is an apple. He makes sure to He shares it with me, and the war is about to take our breath away.”
Gifts and war rituals
In order to search for Al-Indomie, the groom, Abdullah Al-Masry, in his twenties, traveled a few kilometers from the Khan Yunis Al-Balad area to the Al-Mawasi area, west of the city.
Abdullah (27 years old) says about himself: “I am not addicted to eating Indomie,” and he laughs before continuing his conversation with Tel Aviv Tribune Net, “The bride herself eats Indomie and searched for it to fulfill her wish and make her happy in light of this tragic and harsh atmosphere of war and siege.”
Abdullah got married to his life partner, Malak Abu Shawish (24 years old), on May 27, and recently married her in a wedding ceremony that he describes as “tight” and limited to those close to family and loved ones. He says: “Life must go on, but at the same time… “The feelings of our bereaved people must be taken into account.”
The newlyweds abandoned many of the usual wedding and wedding rituals, and after the modest wedding ceremony, Malak moved to live with her groom, Abdullah, in a small room inside his family’s partially destroyed home.
Amid all kinds of pain and suffering afflicting Gazans, Abdullah tries to search for what will make his bride happy. He says: “The war does not leave us with many options. There are no flowers, clothes, or restaurants and places for entertainment, as a result of the bulldozing and destruction, as well as the severe and suffocating siege.”
As a result of the repercussions of the war and the siege, prices rose in an unprecedented way, and Abdullah bought a small “bag of Indomie” for 6 shekels (the dollar is equivalent to 3.7 shekels), and he says that its price was no more than one shekel before the outbreak of war.
What is the strangest gift you received during a time of war and famine? A question posed by Tel Aviv Tribune Net to Gazans, and the answers showed that these gifts were inspired by the crises of famine and the scarcity of goods in the markets, such as one egg (its price is about 3 dollars), coffee (a kilogram costs about 110 dollars), and flour (the price of which is about 3 dollars). The price of a kilo is about $15, if available. There are rare types of fruits, the least of which are sold for about $13 per kilo.
Extermination by starvation
More than one million and 800 thousand Palestinian residents and displaced people in the southern Gaza Strip face great challenges in order to provide a “living”, amid a severe crisis in bread and flour, and a sharp rise in the prices of scarce commodities and goods in the markets.
Israel imposes severe restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid and commercial goods through the Kerem Shalom crossing under its control in the far south-eastern part of the Gaza Strip, and local and international circles accuse it of facilitating the mission of armed gangs to rob the few trucks it allows to enter.
In light of this, the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, announced the suspension of the delivery of aid through the Kerem Shalom crossing, which is the main outlet for humanitarian aid to the Strip, and said that “the road from this crossing has not been safe for months.”
The UN official said: “This difficult decision comes at a time when hunger is rapidly worsening…delivering humanitarian aid should not be risky or turn into suffering.”
According to the UNRWA Media Office on social media platforms, a large convoy of aid trucks was robbed by armed gangs on November 16.
Two days ago, the Commissioner-General of UNRWA said: “We tried to enter a number of food trucks via the same road and they were all seized,” and added: “The humanitarian operation has become impossible due to the ongoing blockade, obstacles from the Israeli authorities (..) and the lack of security on aid routes.”
According to the Commissioner-General of the UN agency, “All of the above led to a collapse in public order.” He said that the responsibility to protect relief and aid workers falls on the State of Israel as an occupying power, and it must ensure the safe flow of aid to Gaza and refrain from launching attacks on workers in the field. Humanitarian.
For his part, Deputy Commissioner-General of the Independent Palestinian Commission for Human Rights, Amjad Shawa, told Tel Aviv Tribune Net that, due to Israeli complications and the seizure of aid, “UNRWA and international food stores are empty,” and people in Gaza are facing “a humanitarian catastrophe and an unprecedented famine that threatens their lives.”