Hunger and heartbreak as families struggle to survive war in Gaza

Young children join parents in desperate quest for food and other essentials as Israeli blockade creates famine conditions

Aid groups warned of surging numbers of malnourished children in war-ravaged Gaza. AFP

Every morning, 13-year-old Mahmoud Al Mahalawi wakes up in a tent pitched beside the rubble of his family’s home in the Al Saftawi neighbourhood of Gaza. Before the war, the summer months meant school holidays and time to play. Now, he says, his days revolve around “looking for ways to keep me and my family alive”.

“I start my day thinking where I should go first, to find some water or stand in line at the tikkia [charity kitchen] so I can bring food home for my brothers,” Mahmoud told The National.

He shares the responsibility for his family's survival with his father, who works whenever he can find a job. Together, they try to scrape together enough for their basic needs amid famine-like conditions created by Israeli restrictions on the entry of aid.

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Desperate crowds often swarm the few aid lorries allowed to enter Gaza, while hundreds of people have been killed by Israeli forces near the few food distribution sites run by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

“I’ve thought more than once about chasing down the aid trucks or going to the American aid centre just to get food for my family,” Mahmoud says. “But my parents always say no. They’re afraid something will happen to me.”

Gazan family's relief after receiving food aid

One Gazan family's relief as they finally receive food aid

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As with most families in Gaza nowadays, anything beyond basic necessities, even fruit, is out of reach because of prices inflated by scarcity and siege. Small quantities of mangoes and bananas that appeared in the markets on Monday were being sold at 200 shekels (more than $50) for 1kg of mangoes and 17 shekels for a banana.

“Sometimes I see fruit and wish I could have some. But I’d never ask my father. He can barely afford to buy us flour, let alone fruit,” Mahmoud says.

“Sometimes I feel like I just want to die. No one really feels our pain. I’m a child, just like children anywhere in the world. I should be in a summer camp, playing football, swimming – not standing in line for water or food, not living in a tent.”

Like many parents in Gaza, Mohammed Abu Asr, 41, is fighting not just hunger but heartbreak. Displaced by the war from Jabalia refugee camp, he now lives in a makeshift home with his wife and four children – two boys and two girls aged between three and 15 – in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood.

“Yesterday, I told my kids not to leave the house, not because of danger, but because I didn’t want them to see the fruit being sold outside,” he told The National. “If they asked me to buy some, I wouldn’t be able to. I can’t even meet their basic needs, like bread and flour.”

However, his children saw photos on Facebook of fruit arriving in Gaza and rushed to him saying, 'Dad, the fruit is here! Please buy us some', he says. “Honestly, the feeling of helplessness was unbearable. There’s no income. And even if there were, how could I justify paying such a huge amount just for fruit when we don’t have food?”

Palestinians gather to receive food from a charity kitchen in Gaza city on Monday. Reuters

For Ilham Al Asi, 38, who lost her husband in an air strike last year, the burden of survival rests on her two young sons – Ibrahim, 14, and Yahya, 10. “I have no one in this life but my children,” Ms Al Asi told The National. “They’re the ones doing everything they can to help us survive.”

Each day, Ibrahim ventures out from their home in Al Tuffah to collect firewood from bombed buildings, risking injury or worse, so his mother can cook, if there is food or flour to prepare. Yahya, meanwhile, stands in line at a charity kitchen for up to five hours each day to bring home a pot of food.

“Sometimes he leaves at nine in the morning and doesn’t come back until three in the afternoon,” Ms Al Asi says. “And what he brings back isn’t even enough for two people.”

She says Yahya once suffered a head injury during a crush at the food kitchen. “We had to take him to the hospital. The crowd was so desperate. Famine in Gaza has reached an unimaginable level. People can’t even secure the most basic food or clean water.”

Ms Al Asi is infuriated by Israel's claims that sufficient quantities of aid are reaching Gaza. “The occupation says it’s sending aid and children’s supplies to protect them from hunger. That’s a lie,” she says. “The only reality here is famine. It’s killing us, children, adults, the elderly. Everyone is suffering. Everyone is dying slowly, every single day.”