Gaza civilians struggle as aid fails to reach north

Time of India

3 days ago

Starving civilians caught in the chaos of food distribution in Gaza (Image credit: AP)
Before the war, Hazem Lubbad was a university student, supporting his studies while working as a waiter at a restaurant in Gaza City. For the past 19 months, he has been hunkering down with his extended family in Sheikh Radwan, a neighbourhood in the northwest of Gaza City.
Many neighboring areas, such as Beit Lahiya and Jabalia, have been ordered by the Israeli military to 'evacuate' and move south. The area faces constant Israeli airstrikes and shelling, residents say, as well as a desperate struggle to find enough food. Moving around the area is dangerous, too.
"We eat whatever is available, one meal a day, from morning until late at night. Sometimes it is lentils; sometimes it is pasta," the 21-year-old Palestinian said in a video message from Gaza.
Food has been in short supply throughout the war, Lubbad said. Now, some food has begun to trickle into Gaza after an 11-week blockade imposed by the Israeli government, but residents say it is still not reaching the north.
Israel closed the crossings and halted all aid deliveries into Gaza on March 2. Israeli officials said that Hamas was stealing aid and using it to supply its own fighters, without providing evidence to support this claim.
Hamas, which is in charge of Gaza, is considered a terrorist group by Israel, Germany, the US and several other countries.
Civilians face daily struggle for food amid war:
"There has been no flour for a month and a half to two months. A kilo of flour on the black-market costs 80–100 shekels (roughly €20-24 or $22-28), and the situation we are living in does not allow us to buy it," explained Lubbad, adding that no one in the family has a regular income anymore due to the war.
Lubbad said that they had set up a basic solar-powered phone charging station where people could recharge their phones in exchange for money.
"Without this money, there's no income," he said. This means that he cannot afford to buy much in the markets, where prices have skyrocketed. According to residents, some of the aid that recently entered Gaza was looted by desperate and hungry people. Others are selling food at inflated prices.
Israel has not allowed foreign journalists into Gaza since it launched its war following the Hamas terror attacks in 2023, so DW often has to rely on talking to Gazans over the phone.
Residents in the north are also watching with horror at the news of almost daily killings of people trying to reach food distribution sites in southern Gaza. These sites are run by a private American-Israeli company called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and secured by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).
The
United Nations
and other humanitarian organizations have rejected the new food distribution system, arguing that it would be unable to meet the needs of Gaza's 2.3 million inhabitants and would allow Israel to use food as a means of controlling the population. There are no distribution sites in northern Gaza and for people in the north it would be too far and dangerous to get to them.
The UN said it is permitted to bring in a limited number of trucks with flour, which is only allowed by Israel to be distributed to bakeries, as well as some other supplies, such as medical items and baby food.
UN-OCHA speaks of 'deprivation by design':
"
It is engineered scarcity," said Jonathan Whittall, head of UN-OCHA, in a briefing with journalists in Jerusalem last week, adding that aid should reach all civilians wherever they are — and should not be limited. "This new scheme is surveillance-based rationing that legitimizes a policy of deprivation by design. And it comes at a time when people in Gaza, half of whom are children, are facing a crisis of survival.
"
There is a widespread shortage of food as well as clean water and cooking gas. People resort to burning rubbish or pieces of wood salvaged from bombed-out buildings to cook.
On Tuesday, in another of such incident, news agencies, quoting local officials, reported there had been 27 deaths after Israeli forces opened fire near an aid center. People have to walk for many miles to reach these sites, which are located near Israeli militarized zones.
Earlier on Tuesday, the IDF put out a statement. "During the movement of the crowd along the designated routes toward the aid distribution site — approximately half a kilometer from the site — IDF troops identified several suspects moving toward them, deviating from the designated access routes," it said. "The troops carried out warning fire, and after the suspects failed to retreat, additional shots were directed near a few individual suspects who advanced toward the troops.
"
It added that the military is "aware of reports regarding casualties, and the details of the incident are being looked into."
The military also said that it "allows the American Civil Organization (GHF) to operate independently in order to enable the distribution of aid to the Gazan residents — and not to Hamas."
The International Red Cross (ICRC) said that its field hospital in Rafah had received "a mass casualty influx of 184 patients" on Tuesday morning.
Nineteen cases were declared dead upon arrival, the statement said, and eight died shortly after. The majority of cases had suffered gunshot wounds.
What is happening at the new distribution points for aid?
Last week, DW spoke to a young man who had been displaced in southern Gaza and who had managed to obtain two food boxes from a GHF distribution point.
"Anyone could carry as much as they could. There were no instructions about the number, no checks, or anything," Muhammad Qishta said by phone, adding that the boxes contained rice, sugar, flour, halva (sweet sesame paste), oil, biscuits, and pasta.
"Since there were no clear instructions about which streets to take to get in and out of the area, some people entered streets they didn't know were off-limits, and there was gunfire.
I ran quickly and didn't see anything, but I heard the sound of gunfire," 30-year-old Qishta said.
In Sheikh Radwan in northern Gaza, Hazem Lubbad and his relatives are staying put. They do not want to leave their area because "everywhere is the same bad situation.
Everywhere is dangerous."
For now, Lubbad said they have also resorted to grinding pasta and lentils to make bread. "We make 20 pieces of pita bread daily and divide them among 13 people. Each person gets one or two pieces of bread per day. This helps us until we find something else to eat."
Until recently, they were also able to buy dukkah, a spice mixture used as a dip for bread, but it is running low. The canned food they stocked up on when it was available has also run out, Lubbad said.
"For the children, it is extremely difficult," he said. "One meal a day is simply not enough, but there is no food for more than one meal."