By Ramadan Abed
GAZA (Reuters) – Itimad al-Qanou, a Palestinian mother struggling to feed her seven children, feels abandoned by everyone.
She sometimes feels that death is the best way to end her family’s suffering after a year of war that has turned Gaza into a bombed-out wasteland gripped by hunger.
“Let them drop a nuclear bomb and end it. We don’t want this life we’re living; we are dying slowly. Have mercy on us. Look at these children,” said the mother of three boys and four girls aged between eight and 18.
Children in their town of Deir al-Balah crowd at a charity site with empty pots, desperate for nourishment. Aid workers distribute lentil soup from a pot. But it is never enough to stave off hunger and ease widespread panic.
Qanou says her family faces the Israeli airstrikes that have killed tens of thousands of people and flattened much of Gaza on the one side, and hunger on the other.
“No one is looking at us, no one cares about us. I ask the Arab countries to stand with us, at least to open the borders so food and supplies can reach our children,” she said.
“They are all liars; they are lying to the people. The United States is standing with Israel against us, they are all united against us.”
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid were allowed through the Erez crossing into northern Gaza on Monday.
The United States will decide this week on whether Israel has made progress toward improving the humanitarian situation in Gaza, and how Washington will respond.
FAMINE IMMINENT
Global food security experts said there is a “strong likelihood” that famine is imminent in parts of northern Gaza as Israel pursues a military offensive against Hamas militants there.
In response to the famine warning, the head of the U.N. Palestinian relief agency UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, accused Israel of using hunger as a weapon.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency that deals with Palestinian civilian affairs, on Sunday published a list of Israel’s humanitarian efforts over the past six months. It detailed plans for supporting Gaza residents as winter approaches.
Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon last month told the United Nations Security Council more than one million tons of aid had been delivered during the past year and he accused Hamas of hijacking the assistance. Hamas denies such allegations.
Aside from the hunger, Gazans say they have no place to go that is safe after repeated evacuations left them living in tent encampments until they need to move again to escape more strikes.
Some say their plight is even worse than the 1948 “Nakba” or Catastrophe when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were dispossessed of their homes in the war at the birth of the state of Israel.
“Conditions were better than what we face now. Now, we have no security, and no place,” said displaced Gazan Mohamed Abou Qaraa.
(Writing by Michael Georgy, Editing by Angus MacSwan)
