When on March 2, we heard all the level passages in Gaza, we thought it would not last more than two weeks. We really wanted a normal Ramadan where we could invite our surviving parents for Iftar and not worry about the food that we could find to break our fast.
But that did not prove this way. We spent the sacred month breaking our fast with canned food.
My family, like most of the Gaza families, had not been full of food or essentials, because no one expected that level passages firmly, or famine – or even war – to return.
In the days following the closure, food and other basic products have disappeared from the markets and the prices have soared. One kilogram of all vegetables jumped at $ 8 or more, sugar $ 22 and baby formula $ 11. A bag of flour previously costing $ 8, went up to $ 50; In two months, he reached $ 300.
Most Gaza people could not afford these prices. Consequently, families, including mine, have started to reduce the number of meals they eat, limit themselves to breakfast and dinner, and reduce the portion of each person-half a new bread for breakfast a whole for dinner. Men, women, elderly people and children stood in front of bakeries and charity kitchens for hours, in shame and pain, just to get some breads or a small plate of food. For some families, it would be their only food for the day.
All the residents of Central Gaza, where I live, had only three bakeries: two in Nuseirat and one in Deir el-Balah.
The crowds of these bakeries were overwhelming, blocking the roads and stopping movements in the region. Each day, there were cases of fainting and suffocation due to the push and the push. In the end, only a small number of those waiting since morning would receive bread.
My father would go to the bakery before sunrise to line up, instead of using what remains of our flour, because we did not know how long this situation would last. But he would find the line already long, dozens who slept outside the bakery. He would stay until noon, then sent my brother to take his place in the line. In the end, they would come back without anything.
On March 31, the World Food Program announced the closure of all its bakeries, including the three to which we could access, due to the exhaustion of the flour and the lack of gas necessary to run the ovens. It marked the start of real famine.
Soon, charity kitchens also started to close because they lacked stock of food. Dozens of them closed last week. People have become even more desperate, many of whom bringing themselves in local groups on Facebook or Telegram to lead for anyone selling a bag of flour at a reasonable price.
We live in a “lucky” district where the kitchen is still working.
My niece Dana, who is eight years old, aligns herself in front of her every day with her friends, waiting for her turn as if it were a game. If she receives a single food ball, she comes back, feeling very proud of herself. And if her turn does not come before food exhausts himself, she returns to tears, complaining about the way this world is unfair.
One day during Ramadan, a boy, moved from his family to Al-Mufti school near our house, was desperately tried to cook the food he had fallen into the hot food pot that charity was cooked. He suffered serious burns and died later from them.
The signs of the famine began to become obvious everywhere about a month and a half after the closing of the level passages. We see them in all aspects of our lives – sleeping on an empty stomach, rapid weight loss inside, pale faces, weak bodies. Go up the stairs now takes us the effort twice.
It has become easier to get sick and more difficult to recover. My nephews, 18-month-old Musab and Mohammed, two, developed a high fever and pseudo-Grippal symptoms during Ramadan. It took them a whole month to improve due to the lack of food and medication.
My mother suffered from a serious vision loss due to complications after the eye surgery she had at the end of February. The malnutrition and the lack of eye drops she needed to recover aggravated her condition.
I myself was sick. I gave blood to the Al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat only a few days before the border closure and this seriously affected my physical health. Now, I suffer from extreme weakness in my body, weight loss and difficulty concentrating. When I went to the doctor, he told me to stop eating canned foods and eat more fruit and meat. He knew what he said was impossible to do, but what else could he say?
The most difficult part of this situation is perhaps to have to explain famine to small children. My nieces and nephews cannot stop asking for things to eat that we simply cannot provide. We find it difficult to convince them that we do not punish them by hiding food, but that we just don’t have it.
Khaled, five, continues to ask meat every day while looking at food photos on his mother’s phone. He looks at the images and asks if his martyred father can eat it all in paradise. Then he asks when his own turn comes, to join his father and eat with him.
We find it difficult to answer. We tell him to be patient and that his patience will be rewarded.
I feel powerless to see daily scenes of famine and despair. I wonder, how can the world remain silent while seeing the body of children become thin and fragile and the sick and the wounded die slowly?
The occupation uses all the methods to kill us – by bombing, famine or illness. We were reduced to begging a piece of bread. The whole world looks and claims that he cannot even give us that.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.
