{"id":14846,"date":"2024-01-30T12:50:39","date_gmt":"2024-01-30T12:50:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/30\/we-are-dying-slowly-palestinians-are-eating-grass-and-drinking-polluted-water-as-famine-looms-across-gaza\/"},"modified":"2024-01-30T12:50:39","modified_gmt":"2024-01-30T12:50:39","slug":"we-are-dying-slowly-palestinians-are-eating-grass-and-drinking-polluted-water-as-famine-looms-across-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/30\/we-are-dying-slowly-palestinians-are-eating-grass-and-drinking-polluted-water-as-famine-looms-across-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We are dying slowly:\u2019 Palestinians are eating grass and drinking polluted water as famine looms across Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hanadi Gamal Saed El Jamara, 38, says sleep is all that can distract her children from the aching hunger gnawing at their bellies. <\/p>\n

These days, the mother-of-seven finds herself begging for food on the mud-caked streets of Rafah, in southern Gaza. <\/p>\n

She tries to feed her kids at least once a day,\u00a0she says, while tending to her husband, a cancer and diabetes patient. <\/p>\n

Over more than 100 days, Palestinians in Gaza have seen\u00a0mass displacement, neighborhoods turned\u00a0to ash\u00a0and rubble, entire\u00a0families erased\u00a0by war, a surge in\u00a0deadly disease\u00a0and the medical system\u00a0wrecked\u00a0by bombardment. Now starvation and dehydration are major threats to their survival. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are dying slowly,\u201d reflected El Jamara, the mother in Rafah. \u201cI think it\u2019s even better to die from the bombs, at least we will be martyrs. But now we are dying out of hunger and thirst.\u201d <\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s strikes on Gaza since the October 7 Hamas attacks have killed at least\u00a026,637 people and injured 65,387 others, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.\u00a0The Israeli military\u00a0launched its campaign after the militant group killed more than 1,200 people in\u00a0<\/strong>unprecedented attacks on Israel and says it is targeting Hamas. <\/p>\n

People in northern Gaza \u2018eat grass\u2019 to\u00a0survive<\/h2>\n

Mohammed Hamouda, a physical therapist displaced to Rafah, remembers the day his colleague, Odeh Al-Haw, was killed trying to get water for his family. <\/p>\n

Al-Haw was queueing at a water station in Jabalya refugee camp, in northern Gaza, when he and dozens of others were struck by Israeli bombardment, Hamouda said. <\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s blockade and restrictions on aid deliveries mean stocks are desperately low, driving up prices and making food inaccessible to people across Gaza. Shortages are even worse in the northern parts of the strip, according\u00a0to the UN, where Israel concentrated its military offensive in the early days of the war. Communication blackouts\u00a0stifle efforts\u00a0to report on starvation and dehydration in the region. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople butchered a donkey to eat its meat,\u201d Hamouda says friends in Jabalya told him earlier this month as shortages worsened. <\/p>\n

In what could be a serious blow to humanitarian efforts,\u00a0several Western countries have suspended funding to the\u00a0main UN agency in Gaza, the\u00a0United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East\u00a0(UNRWA) in recent days over\u00a0explosive allegations\u00a0by Israel that several of its staffers participated in the October 7 attacks. The UN\u00a0fired several employees in the wake of the allegations. <\/p>\n

Jordan\u2019s foreign minister urged those countries suspending funding to reconsider, saying UNRWA was a \u201clifeline\u201d for more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza and that the agency shouldn\u2019t be \u201ccollectively punished\u201d\u00a0over allegations against a dozen of its 13,000 staff. <\/p>\n

\u2018No clean water\u2019<\/h2>\n

Gihan El Baz cradles a toddler on her knee while comforting her children and grandchildren, who she says wake each day \u201cscreaming\u201d for food. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no drinks, no clean water, no clean bathrooms, the kid cries for a biscuit and we can\u2019t even find any to give her.\u201d <\/p>\n

Displaced parents in Rafah, where\u00a0OCHA reported\u00a0more than 1.3 million residents\u00a0of Gaza have been forced to flee, say the stress of being unable to protect their children from bombardment is compounded by their inability to provide\u00a0enough food. Limited access to electricity makes perishable goods impossible to refrigerate. Living conditions are overcrowded and unsanitary. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are forced to cut down trees to get firewood for heating and preparing food. Smoke is everywhere and flies spread widely and transmit\u00a0diseases,\u201d said Hazem Saeed Al-Naizi, the director of an orphanage in Gaza City who fled south with the 40 people under his care \u2013 most of whom are children and infants living with disabilities. <\/p>\n

Hamouda, the displaced health worker, used to feed his children \u2013 aged six, four and two \u2013 a mixture of fruits and vegetables, biscuits, fresh juices, meat\u00a0and seafood. This year, he said, the family has barely eaten one meal a day, living on dried bread and canned meat or legumes. <\/p>\n

\u201cChildren are being violent towards each other to get food and water,\u201d said Hamouda, who works at Abu Youssef Al-Najjar Hospital and volunteers at a nearby shelter. \u201cI can\u2019t stop my tears from falling when I talk about these things, because it\u2019s very hurtful seeing your kids and other kids hungry.\u201d <\/p>\n

All 350,000 children\u00a0under the age of five in Gaza are especially vulnerable to severe malnutrition,\u00a0UNICEF reported\u00a0last month. <\/p>\n

Increased risk of dying<\/h2>\n

The \u201cscale and speed\u201d of potential famine in Gaza will consign child survivors to a lifetime of health risks, said Rebecca Inglis, an intensive care doctor in Britain who regularly visits Gaza to teach\u00a0medical students. <\/p>\n

Malnourished children, especially those with severe acute malnutrition, are at greater risk of dying from illnesses like diarrhea and pneumonia, according to the\u00a0World Health Organization. Cases of diarrhea in children under age five have increased about 2,000% since October 7,\u00a0UNICEF said. <\/p>\n

Hamouda said his own children have diarrhea, cold and flu symptoms. \u201cThe children\u2019s bodies are dehydrated \u2026 their skin is dehydrated.\u201d <\/p>\n

Challenges to food distribution, blocked aid<\/h2>\n

Shadi Bleha, 20, is trying to feed a family of six. Twice a week, they receive two water bottles, three biscuits and \u201csometimes\u201d two cans of food from\u00a0UNRWA, he said. <\/p>\n

In other cases, vendors purchase\u00a0aid from merchants and trade at\u00a0markets\u00a0for inflated costs.\u00a0Some people with cars travel further afield to get water, returning to displacement camps to resell water for hiked\u00a0prices.\u00a0Intensified strikes also raise prices. Three weeks ago, a 25-kilogram bag of flour cost $20 in Khan\u00a0Younis, according to Al-Naizi, but after the\u00a0IDF\u00a0intensified attacks\u00a0on the southern city, it became\u00a0$34. <\/p>\n

Others say they receive humanitarian parcels that have been opened, with items missing. Dates, olive oil and cooking oil found in aid packages are reportedly sold\u00a0on the black market for more than double their value. <\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

On January 21, Israel\u2019s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT),\u00a0said\u00a0260 humanitarian trucks were \u201cinspected and transferred to Gaza,\u201d marking the highest number since the start of the war. <\/p>\n

The WFP\u00a0has called\u00a0for new aid entry routes, more trucks to pass through daily border checks, fewer impediments to the movement of humanitarian workers, and guarantees for their safety. On January 5, the agency\u00a0reported\u00a0six bakeries in Deir al-Balah and Rafah had restarted operations, but three remained out of use. \u201cBread is the most requested food item, particularly as many families lack the basic means for cooking,\u201d it said. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Israel\u2019s military offensive has razed\u00a0at least 22% of Gaza\u2019s agricultural land, according to\u00a0OCHA. Livestock are starving and fresh produce is hard to come by. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s absolute chaos and people are absolutely desperate, people are absolutely hungry,\u201d added Touma.\u00a0\u201cThe clock is indeed ticking for famine.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes families make a personal decision to sell WFP food in exchange for other household items that they might need. To be clear, any food distributed by the WFP is not for sale,\u201d the agency said in a statement. <\/p>\n

The war has also caused widescale\u00a0loss of\u00a0employment\u00a0in Gaza, further draining residents\u2019 purchasing\u00a0power as prices rocket. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe live almost in a jungle where war, murder, the greed of merchants, the injustice of institutions in distributing aid, and the absence of government lead to this deadly chaos,\u201d al-Naizi\u00a0said. <\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hanadi Gamal Saed El Jamara, 38, says sleep is all that can distract her children from the aching hunger gnawing at their bellies. These days, the mother-of-seven finds herself begging for food on the mud-caked streets of Rafah, in southern Gaza. She tries to feed her kids at least once a day,\u00a0she says, while tending <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14847,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14846","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}