Esraa Abo Qamar
Winter has now
come to the Northern Hemisphere and has ushered in a festive mood in many
places. In Gaza, it has brought more misery. The cold weather and rain have
made the lives of the 1.9 million Palestinians displaced in Gaza that much more
unbearable.
Palestinian children wait for a food portion at a distribution centre in
south of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on December 17, 2024
[Bashar Taleb/AFP]
It has rained
hard several times already. Each time, tents of the displaced have been
flooded, damaged, or destroyed, and what little some have had, has been taken
away by the floodwaters.
That has left
many destitute families even more destitute. A new tent in Gaza right now can
go up to $1,000. A makeshift shelter – with the wood and plastic needed for
cover – costs hundreds of dollars. A new blanket can be as much as $100. No one
in the camps has such sums of money.
Many of the
displaced had run away from the bombs with just the clothes on their backs.
Some have tried to salvage clothes from the rubble, but few have succeeded.
As winter
approached, the prices of clothes skyrocketed. A light pyjama now costs $95; a
coat – as much as $100. A pair of shoes – a rare commodity – can go for as much
as $75. Second-hand clothes markets have appeared throughout Gaza to address
overwhelming demand, but the prices there are also too high.
As a result, the
camps are full of people shuddering in the cold in thin summer clothes.
Children walk around barefoot in the mud and puddles.
Fuel for
heating, which is either unavailable or unaffordable for most families. The
cost of 8kg of gas has reached $72. Wood is a bit less, but also too expensive
for most.
The lack of
clothes and fuel for heating is increasing the risk of colds, flu and other
diseases during the winter which in Gaza can become life-threatening. A
malnourished, vulnerable body, exhausted by fear and trauma, struggles even
against a simple cold.
Gaza’s hospitals
are barely functioning, taking care mostly of people gravely wounded in the
bombardment. Suffering from a lack of supplies and staff, they can no longer
provide care for simple illnesses.
Diseases are
spreading also because hygiene has also become nearly impossible to maintain.
Living in in tents, without access to warm water, the displaced cannot shower
or sometimes even wash their hands. A bar of soap is now $5, while a bottle of
shampoo can be as much as $23.
But perhaps the
most unbearable fact of life in Gaza now is the famine. The amount of
humanitarian aid that has entered Gaza has significantly decreased since
October and we have felt its devastating impact across the Strip. It is not
just the north that is experiencing famine. All of Gaza is.
The price of
what little food is available is beyond belief. A single sack of flour now
costs more than $300. Other foodstuffs have also become expensive. A kilo (2.2
pounds) of lentils or a kilo of rice is $7. Vegetables are hard to find and
also very expensive; 1kg of tomatoes is $14; a single onion is $2. Red meat and
chicken cannot be found at all. We have not seen any for months.
The bakeries
that were once a lifeline for families are closed because they can’t get
supplies. Bread, the simplest and most basic of foods, has become a luxury few
of us can afford. Even if a family is able to get flour, it is often infested
with bugs and tastes stale.
People are now
forced to rely on “takaya” – charity soup kitchens – that provide small
portions of food that are barely enough for a family. These organisations open
at 11:00am, which results in large queues forming in front of their
distribution centres. Most families who manage to get a meal from them have
nothing else to feed their children.
Hunger is not
just limited to the physical pain that starving people experience. It also has
an unbearable psychological impact. Parents are forced to watch their children
cry for food during the long, cold nights. Some parents have also had to watch
their children die from starvation. This psychological torment cannot compare
to anything else.
As I write these
words, I am starving myself, having eaten nothing since morning. As I look
around me, I see children and adults, pale and thin, exhausted by hunger and
cold. I wonder how much more they can take; how much more any of us can take?
The cruellest
part of this suffering is the silence of the world that watches from afar but
doesn’t act. As the cold bites us and the hunger makes it worse, we are feeling
isolated and abandoned, like we have been cut off from the rest of humanity.
And as much of the world prepares for a holiday season, we prepare to face
loneliness, despair and death.
Maziar Motamedi
Tehran,
Iran – Tens of millions of people across Iran are facing major disruptions as
authorities shut down services in the face of an exacerbating energy and
currency crisis amid historic regional tensions.
This
week, government offices, schools, banks and businesses in major provinces and
in the capital Tehran have been largely closed due to worsening fuel and power
shortages as temperatures dropped to subzero levels.
Energy
Minister Abbas Aliabadi said on Wednesday that 13 power plants are out of
commission due to a lack of fuel.
“If
the fuel is provided, there will be no problem in providing the electricity, as
power plants have undergone necessary repairs and are ready for winter. The
petroleum ministry is following up on providing fuel,” he told reporters after
a cabinet meeting.
There
have been renewed power outages to homes across the country, most of which have
come unannounced and lasted for hours.
There
have also been massive industrial power cuts, impacting not just large
energy-intensive industries but also many small and medium-sized enterprises
across the country.
This
comes a month after President Masoud Pezeshkian announced blackouts – ones that
were rolled out within days – claiming electricity will be cut because the
government does not wish to burn cheap fuel that would pollute the air.
But
Tehran and major cities have been constantly drowning in a sea of smog that has
been visible even in satellite images, while the blackouts – which at times are
also accompanied by communications outages as cell towers and internet
substations go offline – have persisted.
Situation
unlikely to change in winter
The
crisis is expected to deal a blow to an already heavily strained economy that
has been experiencing skyrocketing inflation and high unemployment for years
due to local mismanagement across multiple governments and harsh sanctions
imposed by the United States.
Despite
holding the second-largest proven natural gas reserves in the world and ranking
fourth in terms of proven crude oil reserves, Iran has been facing gas
shortages during winter for years.
The
power outages were largely within the summertime before now, but have recently
hit with winter’s first cold, with even state television experts issuing stern
warnings that next year could potentially be far worse.
Authorities
have largely been putting the onus on the public, arguing that Iranians consume
significantly higher levels of energy, especially natural gas, than people in
other countries.
The
gas shortage, in turn, either puts power plants out of commission or forces
them to burn cheap, dirty and low-yield fuels like mazut, a low-quality, heavy
oil that has been a major driver of rampant air pollution in Iran in recent
years.
Earlier
this month, Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raisi said 15 percent of all deaths
in Tehran are caused by air pollution, with thousands of victims each year.
Health
Minister Mohammad Reza Zafarghandi said last week that Iran suffers at least
$12bn in costs and damages due to air pollution annually, and some calculations
put the figure close to $20bn.
The
president apologised to the public on Monday for the fuel shortages, signalling
the situation is unlikely to change during the winter.
“God
willing, we will try next year so these things won’t happen,” Pezeshkian said.
Rial
takes a beating
For
now, his government has launched a nationwide initiative that calls on the
people to decrease the average temperature of their homes by 2 degrees Celsius
(3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in order to help manage the energy crisis.
Government
ministers are filming themselves pledging to remain committed to the
initiative, while lights are reportedly shut off in the courtyard of the
president’s office.
Lights
have also been turned off in major highways and expressways in Tehran and other
places, plunging them into total darkness at night in a move that the police
force has said could cause fatalities and undermine public order.
The
energy crisis bears down on the country as Iran’s national currency, the rial,
continues to hit new all-time lows on a near-daily basis.
The
battered rial broke above 770,000 per US dollar on Wednesday on the unofficial
currency market, continuing a trend that has picked up pace since the start of
Israel’s war on Gaza last year, and specifically in the aftermath of the fall
of longtime President Bashar al-Assad in Syria last week.
Tehran
lost an ally of four decades and a major staging ground for its “axis of
resistance” with the collapse of the al-Assad dynasty, stoking concerns that
the conflict could edge closer to Iranian territory.
Israel,
which launched the first known direct air strikes on Iranian soil since the
1980s in late October, has threatened further attacks on Iran’s nuclear and
energy infrastructure.
Tensions
are only expected to grow with the incoming administration of US
President-elect Donald Trump, who in 2018, in his first term in office, began
the so-called “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran after unilaterally
abandoning its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
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