August 14, 2024
Since October 7,
my life has been split between two parallel realms. In the first, I go about my
daily life as usual here in Turkey, where I work, visit my friends, do my
routine shopping, and take care of my immediate family. In the second realm, I
am immersed in the daily reports of the death, destruction, displacement, and
fear that my family, friends, and neighbors are enduring in Gaza, and try to
help them as much as possible.
My family in
Gaza count themselves among the lucky ones: they have a roof over their heads.
Thirty-five of my relatives are currently sharing my parents’ overcrowded house
in Nuseirat refugee camp, in the center of the Gaza Strip. In January, they
were temporarily displaced when Israel issued evacuation orders and sent tanks
into the camp, but they subsequently managed to return.
With around 90
percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents displaced and living in makeshift
tents, ill-equipped displacement centers, or on the streets, my family are
better off than most. Yet they still face severe hardships and indignities
every day, forced to drink polluted water and search for food and cooking
supplies. This is what the daily struggle for survival looks like inside the
besieged and bombarded Gaza Strip.
Queuing for days
for two tins of beans
Since October,
Israel’s “total siege” on Gaza has led to full-blown famine throughout the
Strip. Humanitarian aid has been held up at entry points, and the little that
has entered has been vastly inadequate. Israel’s destruction and takeover of
the Rafah Crossing in May — through which most aid had been entering — has made
the situation even more disastrous.
The U.S.-built
pier off the coast of Gaza also proved ineffective, delivering only a fraction
of what trucks can bring in before being dismantled after 25 days. Airdrops
have done more harm than good, falling on Palestinian homes and tents and even
killing several people.
In order to
receive what limited aid is available, residents must stand in line for long
periods; in some cases, friends have queued for days to get two tins of beans
and some biscuits. What’s more, because Israel has routinely obstructed the
entry of aid, residents have been getting ill from eating canned meats that
expired while being held up for weeks at the Egyptian side of the Rafah
Crossing. “Even the cats refused to eat that meat,” Abdullah Eid, my
27-year-old neighbor from Nuseirat, told me.
When aid
shipments are distributed inside Gaza, residents receive small quantities of
flour — some of which is also expired. But because most bakeries are no longer
able to operate, Eid noted, “we have to buy wheat [that arrives in aid
packages], grind it by hand, and bake it at home. Cooking gas is very limited
and expensive, so we have to use wood from bombed-out houses and trees uprooted
by airstrikes.” Some people have also resorted to building bread ovens out of
clay, animal dung, and straw.
Soon after the
onset of the war, Israel shut off the pipes supplying Gaza with water, and the
cessation of aid entering through the Rafah Crossing since May means bottled
water is increasingly hard to find. Water tanks connected to people’s homes
have been largely destroyed by Israeli airstrikes. Tap water, drawn from Gaza’s
aquifer, is polluted with sewage and seawater, yet people have no choice but to
use it for drinking, bathing, and cooking, causing many residents to fall ill
with gastroenteritis and hepatitis. Skin diseases are also spreading rapidly,
and polio has been detected in wastewater.
A few
small-scale water desalination facilities are functioning, while some mosques
and other institutions have their own water purification systems, so residents
queue to collect water from there. “We carry buckets of water from far away so
that we can go to the bathroom, wash clothes, and bathe at home,” Eid said. “I
swear, even as a young man, in the prime of my life, my back has become
exhausted.”
In the scorching
heat of summer, friends and family manage to shower only once every 7-10 days.
Shampoo is not available, and some corrupt hygiene products have contributed to
the spread of skin infections.
Renting slippers
for an hour
As quality of
life has deteriorated in Gaza, the cost of living has spiraled exponentially.
The price of basic goods in the market such as meat, flour, water, and
vegetables is now 25 to 50 times higher than before the war.
“We are all
dying slowly,” Eid told me. “We are no longer able to provide daily food [for
our families]. A bag of flour that used to cost NIS 30 [$8] now costs NIS 500
[$137], and is very difficult to obtain. Each household needs four bags of
flour per month because of the large number of people living in one house. We
can see a difference in our children’s bodies.”
Most people have
been out of work for 10 months, and are struggling to afford these prices. My
brother Ismail, 32, who is a smoker, laments “the skyrocketing price of
cigarettes,” adding: “Items [in the market] that you would previously not
hesitate to buy are now too expensive or too rare to find.”
Even obtaining
cash is increasingly difficult. Almost all of Gaza’s banks and ATMs have ceased
functioning. In central Gaza, most people get cash by paying large commissions
either at exchange offices or from a branch of Bank of Palestine — the only
bank that remains open in the city of Deir Al-Balah — where they queue for
hours, if not days, to receive small sums. On Aug. 11, the branch was stormed
by gunmen whose identity and intentions are not known.
Israel has
blocked imports of cash into the Strip, and sending money to Gazan bank
accounts from abroad is expensive, with exchange offices deducting up to 25
percent of the transfer sum as a commission. The overuse of banknotes has
devalued them — albeit creating new jobs for people trying to repair them and
make some money — and criminal gangs are exploiting the lack of cash by
operating a black market.
Most Gazans were
initially displaced from their homes during winter, but because Israel has
prohibited the entry of clothing, summer clothes and shoes are scarce and
people do their best to reuse or convert their own remaining items. Ismail, my
brother, laughed as he told me that some Palestinians in Gaza “even rent out
slippers for an hour or two for less than a dollar.” As comical as they may
sound, these stories speak volumes about the reality Gazans are facing,
deprived of even the simplest necessities — and doing whatever they can to
support themselves and their families.
Making tents out
of aid parachutes
Even before
October 7, Palestinians in Gaza were limited to a few hours of electricity a
day under Israeli’s military blockade, and relied on alternative methods of
generating electricity such as generators and solar panels.
However, with
Israel’s imposition of a “total siege,” the fuel required to power generators
soon became scarce. While car batteries and other smaller batteries could
provide electricity at the beginning of the war, most have now been fully
drained. As a result, most Gazans, including my family, use solar panels to
charge their phones in order to speak to loved ones and watch the news — most
of which replays the horrors they are living through.
Many residents
already owned solar panels; others bought from those whose houses were bombed,
or paid neighbors to use theirs. Nowadays, however, they are in short supply
and prohibitively expensive — and have even been targeted by Israeli
airstrikes.
With the
shortage of fuel, most people no longer have the luxury of being able to travel
by car. Some get around by donkey carts, while most are forced to walk.
Donkeys, Gazans joke, have been more useful than most governments and
international actors.
My family
considers themselves lucky that their home is still standing, even if it is
overcrowded with relatives. Most Gazans have been displaced multiple times, and
now hundreds of thousands live in tent camps, where they are forced to use
communal toilets and showers, and construct their own shelters — a skill that
many learn out of necessity.
Tents are made
from whatever materials are available: wood, nylon, cloth, or the remains of
parachutes from airdropped aid. Right now, in the heat of summer, the tents
feel like an oven; during the cold winter months, they did little to protect
from the elements.
Burying new
martyrs in old graves
One of the most
difficult moments during the last 10 months was when my father passed away in
May. He had dealt with chronic blood sugar and blood pressure problems, and had
suffered multiple strokes — which had recently led him to be diagnosed with
Dejerine Roussy syndrome. I was only able to send him the necessary medicine
via an international delegation that entered Gaza.
My father felt
his time was coming to an end, and he refused to leave Gaza, eventually
suffering a brain stroke that took his life. I spent long hours on the phone
trying to help save his life, but with the lack of medicine in the Strip, we
were ultimately unsuccessful.
Sadly, my
father’s case was not unique among the thousands of chronically or terminally
ill Palestinians in Gaza, who have long struggled to access proper care under
the Israeli blockade. Many cancer patients, in particular, have lost their
lives over the years waiting for Israeli permits to leave the Strip. Some
patients receive permits for one chemotherapy session, but no follow ups. The
military has also blackmailed cancer patients, offering medical permits only if
they agree to collaborate with Israeli intelligence.
In November, the
Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital in Gaza City, which had been the
Strip’s main cancer treatment center since it opened in 2017, ran out of fuel
and stopped functioning. The Israeli army subsequently occupied the facility
and used it as a base.
“The war and the
siege are especially difficult for patients like us who cannot receive
treatment or necessary medical imaging, and there is no one to follow up on our
condition,” Najwa Abu Yousef, my 58-year-old neighbor who is a cancer patient,
told me. “We survive by eating the canned goods that come as aid, but these are
unhealthy and people like me, who are sick, should not be eating them. My
health condition has severely deteriorated, and since October I’ve lost
consciousness twice — both for a period of 10 to 15 minutes — due to my illness
and weak immune system.”
Even Gaza’s dead
are denied the respect and dignity of a proper burial. So many Palestinians
have been killed by Israel’s attacks — the Gaza Health Ministry’s death toll
currently stands at around 40,000, with an additional 10,000 thought to be
under the rubble of their homes — that their families have had to bury them in
mass graves, or dig up the graves of family members who died before and bury
the new martyrs in the same spot.
No one should
have to live like this. We urgently need U.S. and international action to stop
the genocide. Every day Palestinians wake up and go to sleep with the news of
death. The sound of bombs and drones has become the soundtrack to their lives.
Gazans spend every waking hour with one question on their mind: When will this
nightmare end?
Dave DeCamp
August 13, 2024
On Tuesday, the State Department
approved a series of potential weapons sales to Israel worth over $20 billion
that includes F-15 fighter jets and tank munitions. The approval comes as
Israeli airstrikes continue to slaughter civilians in Gaza, including newborn
twins who were killed hours before the State Department announced the new
support for Israel.
In total, the US announced five new
arms deals for Israel. The biggest is for 50 F-15 fighter jets and related
equipment, worth $18.8 billion. Israel will also receive $102.5 million in
advanced air-to-air missiles, about 33,000 120mm tank cartridges worth $774
million, 50,000 high-explosive 120mm mortar rounds worth $61.1 million, and
$583.1 million worth of medium tactical vehicles.
It’s unclear how much of the massive
weapons sale will be funded by US military aid. The announcement came a few
days after the State Department said it was releasing $3.5 billion in military
assistance for Israel in the form of Foreign Military Financing, a program that
gives foreign governments money to buy US weapons.
It will take years before the F-15s
and other weapons will be delivered to Israel, although, according to Reuters,
the tank rounds would be almost immediately available for delivery. The
notification begins a period where Congress could potentially block the sales,
but it’s expected to breeze through since only a few dozen progressive
Democrats are opposed to arming Israel.
The approval of the deals shows
strong support from the Biden administration for Israel’s genocidal war, which
according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians, or
about 2% of Gaza’s entire population. The Health Ministry’s numbers are
believed to be a low estimate since it doesn’t account for thousands of people
who are missing and presumed dead under the rubble or others who have died due
to indirect causes.
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