Witnessing starvation on the streets of Gaza

Globe and Mail

7 days ago

Years ago, I planted a tree by my house that produced wild fruit. I didn't know what it was, and thought it might be poisonous, so no one went near the fruit. But as the famine in Gaza has worsened, I started to see children climb the tree every day and eat the fruit, though I warned them not to many times. Their answer is always the same: 'We are very hungry.'
Children, who should be safe and protected, have to look for any food, even if it is dangerous. Words are inadequate. What is happening in Gaza is not just a temporary food crisis as sometimes reported in international media. It is a real famine.
A few days ago, we heard shouting and noise outside our home in the Bureij refugee camp. We rushed to the door and found a woman lying on the ground, unconscious. Some young men were trying to help her and had called an ambulance. We brought her water and tried to wake her up. When the medics arrived, they said she was suffering from severe malnutrition. She hadn't eaten for days. Her body was so weak that she had collapsed in front of our home.
This is now normal in the streets of Gaza. Pale faces, sunken eyes, and thin bodies searching for something to eat. Many don't know if they will find food today or not.
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Hassan Abdel Fattah, 25, was healthy before the war. Today he sits in the corner of his room at the Bureij camp, unable to move. He has lost more than half of his weight. 'I can't stand on my feet,' he tells me in a voice low with fatigue. 'My body is collapsing, and sometimes I feel like my heart will stop from how tired I am. The last time I ate meat was five months ago.'
Om Ibrahim is a mother living with her six children in a tent in the refugee camp. She says that she sometimes cooks a light lentil soup for them to eat.
'My children cry all night from hunger,' she says. 'I give them water to calm them, but it doesn't help any more.'
My family – my wife and our four children – is made up of adults, but that doesn't make life any easier. We start each day searching for something to eat for breakfast. Most days we try to buy hummus or falafel if they're available, though prices have become very high. We used to buy 10 pieces of falafel for about 25 cents. Now, we buy one piece for the same cost. Sometimes we find nothing, so we just eat lentils. Bread is rare since flour is almost gone. We usually eat with spoons instead of mopping food up with bread as we used to do. Because of the power cuts, we don't use a fridge any more. That means we must eat everything immediately and we can't save food for the next day.
The borders with Israel and Egypt remain closed. Only very small amounts of aid enters Gaza. There are no shops open, only a few random street stalls that change location and what they sell from day to day. If we're lucky, we find a little bit of vegetables. As for meat or chicken, we haven't tasted them in more than five months either, like Mr. Abdel Fattah.
At Al Awda hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp, a nurse, Imad Muharab was examining a child suffering from extreme thinness.
'We receive dozens of children every day with malnutrition,' he says. 'Most of them have dehydration, severe thinness and ongoing diarrhea. Sadly, we don't have enough medicine or special food.'
He said that basic medical tools are hard to find. 'Sometimes we have to send kids home, even though they badly need treatment,' he says.
Journalists are also suffering from hunger, making it hard to do our job. When I visited Al Awda hospital recently, a journalist standing near me fainted in front of the medical team. It was a shocking moment. He was helped immediately. Later, they discovered he had very low blood pressure, severe malnutrition and was exhausted.
Aya Hasaballah, a nutrition expert, says hunger slowly breaks down a person's health and it is worse for Gaza's children.
'Most children today don't get enough protein or calories, or important nutrients like iron, zinc and iodine,' she says. 'This causes serious problems like low weight, stunted growth and anemia as well as weak immunity.'
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She says the effects of hunger will not end when the war ends. Children with malnutrition are at risk of brain development issues and chronic diseases in the future such as diabetes and heart problems, as well as mental-health ones including anxiety and depression.
Compared to past wars or crises in Gaza, the situation is much harder this time. In previous conflicts, even with bombing and power cuts, people could buy some basic needs on some days. Aid was allowed in. But now there has been almost no real ceasefire, markets are not open and the crossings are mostly closed. The same goes for medical supplies including medicine, disinfectants and personal hygiene items.
As for those who die from hunger, their families face problems just to bury them. The cost of a grave in Gaza is about $370 Canadian – a very high amount for families who have lost their income.