Gazans lining up for food say supplies remain limited
Thousands of Palestinians desperate for food lined up outside two distribution centers in southern Gaza on Wednesday, despite concerns over security. Large crowds had overwhelmed one of the centers a day earlier and Israeli forces said they fired warning shots outside the compound. As the number of people surged after a slow start, witnesses said there was disorder and crowding as they heard about food running out.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a private entity overseeing the new aid system, said that it was operating the two distribution sites in southern Gaza on Wednesday afternoon without unusual incidents. It has distributed approximately 14,550 boxes of food since it began operations on Monday, GHF said, but didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on supplies running out and disorder at the distribution sites on Wednesday.
Nizar Thabet, 37, who walked to one of the distribution sites near the Israeli-built Morag corridor in Rafah with his two hungry children, said he was able to get his hands on lentils, rice, and packs of pasta by asking others to give him some rather than receiving his own box.
Palestinians carrying supplies received from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday.
'Some boxes were opened—quantities were gone. I got food from others who hadn't eaten in 20 days," he said. Many others left empty-handed because supplies ran out, he said.
Israel was pressured to end its more than two-month blockade on Gaza, which it says was aimed at pressuring Hamas to release the hostages. During this period, no aid, medicine or fuel entered the enclave, leading to widespread hunger, according to residents and aid groups. The humanitarian crisis led to an international outcry, including from the U.S., Israel's close ally, which pushed Israel to lift the blockade earlier this month.
But little aid has since reached Gazans, according to residents, and many are surviving on just one meal a day, mainly bread and canned goods.
According to the new plan, aid is to be handed out directly to Gazan families at distribution sites with the help of private security companies, to prevent Hamas from taking control of the aid, as Israel alleges. Hamas denies that it seizes the aid. Israeli military forces are stationed nearby for security.
Trucks loaded with aid arriving at the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza, on Wednesday. UTERS/Shafiek Tassiem
Many Gazans who are facing severe food shortages say they will do anything to feed their families, but the scenes of chaos, looting and Israeli shooting near the compound Tuesday were concerning, they said.
'The scenes were heartbreaking," said Mohammed Al-Saafin, 25 years old, who is sheltering in the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. 'People were desperate, running after trucks, just trying to get a bag of flour or some canned food. I won't go—it's too dangerous," he said.
The new aid plan overhauls the way aid has entered Gaza through international aid groups since the start of the war, and has faced criticism from more than 20 countries and the United Nations. Critics say it puts people unnecessarily at risk and can't meet the needs of the population on the ground. Most of the planned distribution sites are situated in southern Gaza, which makes reaching them difficult for those who live elsewhere or are unable to move.
'The U.N. has refused to participate in this scheme, warning that it is logistically unworkable and violates humanitarian principles by using aid as a tool in Israel's broader efforts to depopulate areas of Gaza," Jonathan Whittall, the head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said at a press briefing Wednesday.
Since the start of the war, Israel has issued evacuation orders that cover widespread areas in Gaza, which it says are aimed at ensuring the population is out of harm's way in active combat areas but which have repeatedly displaced Gazans.
Momen Hassouneh, a 33-year-old father to three young children who is living in the al-Rimal neighborhood in Gaza City, located in the strip's north, said it would be difficult to make the journey to distribution centers in the south.
'Transportation is difficult. If the roads were open, we'd want to go," Hassouneh said.
The continuing war makes people fearful of moving unless forced. Israel says that it launched a renewed offensive in the enclave to crush Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel had killed Hamas's top leader in Gaza, Mohammed Sinwar, after targeting him in a strike earlier this month.
Mohammad Abo Nasem, 38 and a father of three children, is living in a tent in Khan Younis, after being displaced six times since the start of the war. He said he was initially encouraged by photos of people receiving aid on Tuesday, but was deterred by the large crowds.
'I didn't like what happened yesterday because there was no order," he said. 'If there was a system that was more comfortable for people and spared people the humiliation of standing in long lines and chaos, if there was a better mechanism, everyone could get their share without problems or crowding," he said.
But with a family to feed he is desperate. 'I literally have nothing to feed my family. No lentils, no pasta, nothing." He said he would go to a distribution center tomorrow to try his luck.
Write to Anat Peled at anat.peled@wsj.com
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Indian Express
an hour ago
- Indian Express
Missing loved ones leave those left behind with ‘ambiguous loss' — a form of frozen grief
Rachel Ganz's husband might be alive. But he might not be. More than three months after he was last seen near the Eleven Point River in Missouri amid severe flooding and evacuation orders, Jon Ganz is just … missing. That leaves Rachel, 45, in a limbo of sorrow and frustration, awakening 'every morning to a reality I don't want to exist in.' She dwells there in a liminal state, she wrote by email July 11, with a stream of questions running through her head: 'Is he trapped by debris in the river? Is he in a tangled mass of debris on the riverbank? Did he wander off into the forested area instead?' And one that remains stubbornly unanswered: 'Are they ever going to find him?' 'Obviously I want my husband returned alive,' she wrote to The Associated Press, 'though I am envious of those who have death certificates.' Like the families of the missing after the July 4 Texas floods experienced for much of this month, Ganz is suffering from what grief experts call ambiguous loss: the agony of living in the absence of a loved one whose fate is uncertain. Humans across borders, cultures and time unfortunately know it well. Ambiguous loss can be intimate, like Ganz' experience, or global, as in the cases of the missing from the Sept. 11 attacks, tsunamis in the Indian Ocean and Japan, the Turkey-Syria earthquake, the Israel-Hamas war and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The distinguishing feature, according to Pauline Boss, the researcher who coined the term in the 1970s, is the absence of ritual — a wake, a funeral, throwing dirt on a grave — to help the families left behind accept the loss. The only way forward, experts say, is learning to live with the uncertainty — a concept not well-tolerated in Western cultures. 'We're in a state of mind, a state of the nation, right now where you either win or you lose, it's either black or its white,' said Boss, a professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota who has researched ambiguous loss globally over a half century. 'You have to let go of the binary to get past it, and some never do. They are frozen. They are stuck.' Sarah Wayland, a social work professor from Central Queensland University in Sydney, says ambiguous loss is different from mourning because it's about 'repetitive trauma exposure,' from the 24-hour news cycle and social media. Then there is a devastating quiet that descends on the people left behind when interest has moved on to something else. 'They might be living in this space of dreading but also hoping at the same time,' Wayland said. 'And they are experiencing this loss both publicly and privately.' Heavy rains drove a wall of water through Texas Hill Country in the middle of the night July 4, killing at least 132 people and leaving nearly 200 missing as of last week, though that number has dwindled as this week begins. Over just two hours, the Guadalupe River at Comfort, Texas, rose from hip-height to three stories tall, sending water weighing as much as the Empire State building downstream roughly every minute it remained at its crest. Those without bodies to bury have been frozen in a specific state of numbness and horror — and uncertainty. 'It's beyond human imagination to believe that a loved one is dead,' Boss says. This feeling can come in any global circumstance. Lidiia Rudenko, 39, represents a group of families in Ukraine whose relatives are missing in action. Her husband, Sergey, 41, has been missing since June 24, 2024, when his marine brigade battled the Russian army near Krynky. He's one of tens of thousands of Ukrainians missing since the Russian invasion in 2022. And she is one of thousands in Ukraine left behind. 'Some people fall into grief and can no longer do anything, neither act nor think, while others start to act as quickly as possible and take the situation into their own hands, as I did,' Rudenko said. 'There are days when you can't get out of bed,' she said. 'Sometimes we call it 'getting sick.' And we allow ourselves to get sick a little, cry it out, live through it, and fight again.' For nearly a decade, Leah Goldin was part of a very small number of people in Israel with the dubious distinction of being the family of a hostage. Her son, Hadar Goldin, 23, a second lieutenant in the Israeli army, was killed, then his body taken on August 1, 2014. A blood-soaked shirt, prayer fringes and other evidence found in the tunnel where Goldin's body had been held led the Israeli army to determine he'd been killed, she said. His body has never been returned. Her family's journey didn't dovetail with the regular oscillations of grief. 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In Gaza, Israel's offensive has killed nearly 59,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't say how many militants have been killed but says over half of the dead have been women and children. Thousands of the dead are believed to be buried under rubble throughout the enclave. Ganz, whose husband went missing in Missouri in April, said the sheriff's department and others searched far and wide at first. She posted fliers around the town where his car was found, and on social media. Then someone accused her of 'grieving without proof,' a remark that still makes her fume. 'One of my biggest frustrations has been people stating, 'If you need anything, please let me know,'' Ganz said. That puts the burden on her, and follow-through has been hard to come by, she said. 'We already have enough ambiguity.' She's thinking about setting up a nonprofit organization in Jon's honor, dedicated to breaking the stigma against men getting therapy, to show 'that it's not weak.' That tracks with Goldin's thinking that taking action can help resolve loss — and with Rudenko's experience in Ukraine. Boss recommends separate community meetings for families of the confirmed dead and those of the missing. For the latter, a specific acknowledgement is helpful: 'You have to first say to the people, 'What you are experiencing is an ambiguous loss. It's one of the most difficult kinds of losses there is because there's no resolution. It's not your fault,'' Boss said. In Ukraine, Rudenko said it helps to recognize that families of the missing and everyone else live in 'two different worlds.' 'Sometimes we don't need words, because people who have not been affected by ambiguous loss will never find the right words,' she said. 'Sometimes we just need to be hugged and left in silence.'
NDTV
4 hours ago
- NDTV
From Missouri To Gaza: The Global Grief Of Families With Missing Loved Ones
Rachel Ganz's husband might be alive. But he might not be. More than three months after he was last seen near the Eleven Point River in Missouri amid severe flooding and evacuation orders, Jon Ganz is just ... missing. That leaves Rachel, 45, in a limbo of sorrow and frustration, awakening "every morning to a reality I don't want to exist in." She dwells there in a liminal state, she wrote by email July 11, with a stream of questions running through her head: "Is he trapped by debris in the river? Is he in a tangled mass of debris on the riverbank? Did he wander off into the forested area instead?" And one that remains stubbornly unanswered: "Are they ever going to find him?" "Obviously I want my husband returned alive," she wrote to The Associated Press, "though I am envious of those who have death certificates." Like the families of the missing after the July 4 Texas floods experienced for much of this month, Ganz is suffering from what grief experts call ambiguous loss: the agony of living in the absence of a loved one whose fate is uncertain. Humans across borders, cultures and time unfortunately know it well. Ambiguous loss can be intimate, like Ganz' experience, or global, as in the cases of the missing from the Sept. 11 attacks, tsunamis in the Indian Ocean and Japan, the Turkey-Syria earthquake, the Israel-Hamas war and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The distinguishing feature, according to Pauline Boss, the researcher who coined the term in the 1970s, is the absence of ritual - a wake, a funeral, throwing dirt on a grave - to help the families left behind accept the loss. The only way forward, experts say, is learning to live with the uncertainty - a concept not well-tolerated in Western cultures. "We're in a state of mind, a state of the nation, right now where you either win or you lose, it's either black or its white," said Boss, a professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota who has researched ambiguous loss globally over a half century. "You have to let go of the binary to get past it, and some never do. They are frozen. They are stuck." Sarah Wayland, a social work professor from Central Queensland University in Sydney, says ambiguous loss is different from mourning because it's about "repetitive trauma exposure," from the 24-hour news cycle and social media. Then there is a devastating quiet that descends on the people left behind when interest has moved on to something else. "They might be living in this space of dreading but also hoping at the same time," Wayland said. "And they are experiencing this loss both publicly and privately." Heavy rains drove a wall of water through Texas Hill Country in the middle of the night July 4 , killing at least 132 people and leaving nearly 200 missing as of last week, though that number has dwindled as this week begins. Over just two hours, the Guadalupe River at Comfort, Texas, rose from hip-height to three stories tall, sending water weighing as much as the Empire State building downstream roughly every minute it remained at its crest. Those without bodies to bury have been frozen in a specific state of numbness and horror - and uncertainty. "It's beyond human imagination to believe that a loved one is dead," Boss says. This feeling can come in any global circumstance. Lidiia Rudenko, 39, represents a group of families in Ukraine whose relatives are missing in action. Her husband, Sergey, 41, has been missing since June 24, 2024, when his marine brigade battled the Russian army near Krynky. He's one of tens of thousands of Ukrainians missing since the Russian invasion in 2022. And she is one of thousands in Ukraine left behind. "Some people fall into grief and can no longer do anything, neither act nor think, while others start to act as quickly as possible and take the situation into their own hands, as I did," Rudenko said. "There are days when you can't get out of bed," she said. "Sometimes we call it "getting sick. And we allow ourselves to get sick a little, cry it out, live through it, and fight again." For nearly a decade, Leah Goldin was part of a very small number of people in Israel with the dubious distinction of being the family of of a hostage. Her son, Hadar Goldin, 23, a second lieutenant in the Israeli army, was killed, then his body taken on August 1, 2014. A blood-soaked shirt, prayer fringes and other evidence found in the tunnel where Goldin's body had been held led the Israeli army to determine he'd been killed, she said. His body has never been returned. Her family's journey didn't dovetail with the regular oscillations of grief. They held what Leah Goldin now calls a "pseudo-funeral' including Goldin's shirt and fringes, at the urging of Israel's military rabbis. But the lingering uncertainty was like a "knife constantly making new cuts.". In the dizzying days after Hamas' attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, the Goldin family threw themselves into attempting to help hundreds of families of the 251 people Hamas had dragged into Gaza. But for a time, the Goldins found themselves shunned as advocacy for the October 7 hostages surged. "We were a symbol of failure," Leah Goldin said. "People said, 'We aren't like you. Our kids will come back soon.'" She understood their fear, but Goldin, who had spent a decade pushing for Hamas to release her son's body, was devastated by the implication. In time, the hostage families brought her more into the fold, learning from her experience. Hamas still holds 50 Israeli hostages, fewer than half of whom are believed to be alive. In Gaza, Israel's offensive has killed nearly 59,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't say how many militants have been killed but says over half of the dead have been women and children. Thousands of the dead are believed to be buried under rubble throughout the enclave. Ganz, whose husband went missing in Missouri in April, said the sheriff's department and others searched far and wide at first. She posted fliers around the town where his car was found, and on social media. Then someone accused her of "grieving without proof," a remark that still makes her fume. "One of my biggest frustrations has been people stating, 'If you need anything, please let me know,'" Ganz said. That puts the burden on her, and follow-through has been hard to come by, she said. "We already have enough ambiguity." She's thinking about setting up a nonprofit organization in Jon's honor, dedicated to breaking the stigma against men getting therapy, to show "that it's not weak." That tracks with Goldin's thinking that taking action can help resolve loss - and with Rudenko's experience in Ukraine. Boss recommends separate community meetings for families of the confirmed dead and those of the missing. For the latter, a specific acknowledgement is helpful: "You have to first say to the people, 'What you are experiencing is an ambiguous loss. It's one of the most difficult kinds of losses there is because there's no resolution. It's not your fault,'" Boss said. In Ukraine, Rudenko said it helps to recognize that families of the missing and everyone else live in "two different worlds." "Sometimes we don't need words, because people who have not been affected by ambiguous loss will never find the right words," she said. "Sometimes we just need to be hugged and left in silence." (Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
News18
9 hours ago
- News18
Gazas children have missed 2 years of school. Truce wont undo damage
Khan Younis (Gaza Strip), Jul 21 (AP) Two years ago, Sarah Qanan was a star high school student preparing for final exams and dreaming of becoming a doctor. Today, the 18-year-old lives in a sweltering tent in the Gaza Strip and says she is just trying to stay alive. She's part of a generation of Palestinians from grade school through university who have had virtually no access to education in the territory since the war began in October 2023. Classes were suspended that month and schools were transformed into crowded shelters as hundreds of thousands fled their homes at the start of Israel's campaign of retaliation after Hamas Oct 7, 2023, attack. The closure of schools has removed a key social outlet for young people as they grapple with war, hunger and displacement. For younger children, it has meant missing out on basic skills like reading and simple arithmetic. For older students, advanced subjects, graduation exams and college applications have all been put on hold. Even if negotiations lead to another ceasefire, it's unclear when anything in Gaza will be rebuilt. Vast areas have been completely destroyed, and the U.N. children's agency estimates that nearly 90% of schools will need substantial reconstruction before they can function again. Like many in Gaza, Qanan's family has been displaced multiple times and is now living in a tent. When an Israeli airstrike destroyed their home in early 2024, she dug through the rubble in search of her books, but 'there was nothing left." 'My sole dream was to study medicine," Qanan said. 'I stopped thinking about it. All my thoughts now are about how to survive." Hundreds of thousands out of school More than 650,000 students have had no access to education since the start of the war, according to the UN children's agency, UNICEF. That includes nearly 40,000 students who were unable to take university entry exams that largely determine their career prospects. It's the first time in decades that the exams were not administered in Gaza. Israel's bombardment and ground operations have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and displaced 90% of Gaza's population. School-age children in crowded shelters and tent camps are often forced to help their families find food, water and firewood. A complete Israeli blockade imposed in early March that was only slightly eased 2 ½ months later has driven the territory to the brink of famine. Local education officials, working with UNICEF and other aid groups, set up hundreds of learning spaces to try and provide education during the war. 'We're trying to salvage what we can of the educational process, so that the next generation doesn't slip through our fingers," said Mohamed al-Asouli, head of the education department in the southern city of Khan Younis. During a six-week ceasefire in January and February, some 600 learning spaces provided lessons for around 173,000 children, according to UNICEF. But since March, when Israel ended the truce with a surprise bombardment, nearly half have shut down. 'The impact goes beyond learning losses," said Rosalia Bollen, a UNICEF spokeswoman. 'Children in Gaza have been trapped in a cycle not just of exposure to unprecedented violence, but also a cycle of fear, of toxic stress, of anxiety." Two years of my life are gone Some have tried to continue their studies through online learning, but it's not easy in Gaza, where there has been no central electricity since the start of the war. Palestinians must use solar panels or hard-to-find generators to charge their phones, and internet is unreliable. 'The mobile phone is not always charged, and we only have one at home," said Nesma Zouaroub, a mother of four school-age children. She said her youngest son should be in second grade but does not know how to read or write. 'The children's future is ruined," she said. Ola Shaban tried to continue her civil engineering studies online through her university after the campus was destroyed by Israeli forces in April 2024. She had to walk long distances to get a signal in her hometown near Khan Younis, and she eventually gave up. 'I couldn't continue because of lack of internet, continuous displacement and the constant sense of fear," she said. 'Two years of my life are gone." Israel's offensive has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government, does not differentiate between combatants and civilians but says over half the dead are women and children. Its figures are used by the UN and other international organisations as the most reliable statistics on war casualties. Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people in the Oct 7 attack and abducted 251. They are still holding 50 hostages, less than half believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire deals or other agreements. Qanan's father, Ibrahim, a local journalist, said his family did everything it could to support Sarah's ambition to study medicine, only to see it go up in smoke when the war broke out. 'The war stunned us and turned our life upside down," the father of six said. 'Our dreams and hopes were buried in the rubble of our home." (AP) NSA NSA (This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed - PTI) view comments First Published: Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
