Gaza's Maha seeks help amid blockade

Express Tribune

28-07-2025

Football referee Maha Mohammad Shabat before October 7, 2023 in Berlin (L), and her on July 28, 2025 in Gaza (R). PHOTO COURTEST: MAHA SHABAT
"I am living the most difficult days of our lives due to fear, hunger and deprivation," Maha Mohamed Shabbat, a footballer and referee originally from northeastern city of Beit Hanoun in Gaza described her condition amid the artificial famine created by the Israel stretching the total blockade of any food supplies to Gazan for 148 days now, since March 2.
She wants the blockade to end, which has pushed the population of 2.1 million, including many infants, to starvation and death.
Meanwhile, the Health Ministry in Gaza has stated last week that at least 59,586 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's genocidal war on the Gaza Strip since October 2023, and many are buried under the rubble.
The Israeli Occupation Force is also controlling the aid stations and regularly massacres Palestinians seeking food.
The ever-smiling Maha is gentle, but firm and unfathomably brave. She has shown incredible grit, like most in Gaza, as she and her family are now living through the genocide for 1 year, 9 months, 22 days.
Before October 7, Maha had dreams of establishing her own club in Gaza for girls. She has worked with several humanitarian organisations, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and she was an active member of the Gaza Strip's vibrant football community.
"Without sports, my life is worth nothing," she wrote about her motto in August 2023 when she represented her community at the Discover Football Festival: Unseen Game event in Berlin.
But in two months, Maha's life turned upside down. She has lost more than 25 family members, including her brother, when he was trying to buy bread in the wake of Israeli attacks in October 2023.
Then she lost several of her cousins and their families, including renowned journalist Hossam Shabat, who worked for Al Jazeera Mubasher and was targeted by Israel for covering the devastation during the genocide and constant attacks.
He is among more than 230 journalists murdered by Israel in Gaza since October 2023.
The relatives that Maha has lost also include a volunteer and doctor, Dr. Mohammed Shabat, who died along with his family while performing humanitarian duties in Gaza.
"My situation is very difficult inside the Gaza Strip because of the continuous bombing, forced displacement, and the difficult economic conditions," she explained to this correspondent as she is now located in Nasr, a West Gazan city, taking shelter at a school.
Maha has also been suffering from bouts of low blood pressure and low blood sugar, to the point where when she needed to make videos to send them out to friends outside of Gaza to request donations, she had to hide her body, that is growing thinner with each passing day, and she was having trouble standing stil due to hunger and lack of food.
In the past, too, Maha got injured because of the bombing and fell ill due to lack of food and clean water several times during displacement and destruction of her home in Beit Hanoun, where she cannot return and is seeking refuge in shelters since October 2023.
"My city is Beit Hanoun. We were unable to reach it. The occupation has taken control of our land and property. Access to it is prohibited," she said with pain and anger.
Maha is not only battling her health issues but also needs to take care of her elderly parents.
"As for the life of my family, they face many difficulties and problems among family members due to the difficult conditions and the lack of money that is not enough to buy daily sustenance and daily needs, the most important of which is flour that they are unable to obtain.
"The parents are elderly and need treatment and medicine. Additionally, my sister needs to complete her university studies, despite the challenging living conditions and fear. The children are the ones who are deprived of food. Health. Now we have malnutrition."
$50 a kilo of flour
"Our children are exposed to the development of this disease. In Gaza, our children are exposed to losing their lives. Some of them lost their lives due to this disease, and the elderly. I am two people, a number of them are young, I mean, from malnutrition," added Maha.
"We have orphan children. Where do these children get the money to buy flour? A kilo of flour costs $50. Sugar costs $100, and it is scarce and unavailable.
"Our bodies need sugars and fats, and vitamins to survive," she added.
Present and future lost
She explained that losing relatives, friends, and colleagues and witnessing all the devastation has also caused her to lose hope in the future.
"I used to think that I was the master of my life and future. I am no longer thinking like a master. I am now thinking about where I will get food and where we will cut wood so we can light a fire," she explained how the genocide has changed her outlook in life.
"I was thinking of establishing a women's football association in Palestine. We worked and established a team at the Al-Ahly Beit Hanoun Club.
"But now, no club has been united in the Gaza Strip or my city of Beit Hanoun. There is no team. They are all scattered. Some are martyrs, some are shooting. Some are displaced to another area in the western Gaza Strip, south of Gaza, searching for safety. There is no safety in the Gaza Strip. Every day, we bid farewell to a martyr and receive the wounded. The attackers are entering hospitals and health tents in the Gaza Strip."
Athletes are killed regularly as sports facilities are destroyed
The Palestinian Football Association had issued a press release on June 29, 2025, stating that at least 785 Palestinian athletes and sports officials in Gaza and the West Bank had been affected since October 2023, whereas "Israeli attacks have completely or partially destroyed 288 sports facilities, including stadiums, gyms, and club buildings. Of those, 21 were in the occupied West Bank."