عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Features

Gaza Families Beg for Bread, Eat Donkey Meat as Aid Deliveries Falter

A picture taken from Rafah shows flares lighting the skies over Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip during Israeli strikes, on December 14, 2023, amid continuing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AFP)
A picture taken from Rafah shows flares lighting the skies over Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip during Israeli strikes, on December 14, 2023, amid continuing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AFP)
TT
TT

Gaza Families Beg for Bread, Eat Donkey Meat as Aid Deliveries Falter

A picture taken from Rafah shows flares lighting the skies over Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip during Israeli strikes, on December 14, 2023, amid continuing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AFP)
A picture taken from Rafah shows flares lighting the skies over Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip during Israeli strikes, on December 14, 2023, amid continuing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AFP)

People in Gaza described begging for bread, paying 50 times more than usual for a single can of beans and slaughtering a donkey to feed a family as food aid trucks were unable to reach most parts of the bombarded Palestinian territory.

Israel was pounding the length of the Gaza Strip in pursuit of its goal of destroying Hamas, the conflict making it almost impossible for aid convoys to move around and reach people going hungry.

The UN humanitarian office OCHA said on Thursday that limited aid distributions were taking place in the Rafah area, close to the border with Egypt, where almost half of Gaza's population of 2.3 million is now estimated to be living.

"In the rest of the Gaza Strip, aid distribution has largely stopped, due to the intensity of hostilities and restrictions on movement along the main roads," it said.

"Aid? What aid? We hear about it and we don't see it," said Abdel-Aziz Mohammad, 55, displaced from Gaza City and sheltering with his family and three others, about 30 people in total, at the house of friends who live further south.

"I used to have a big house, two fridges full of food, electricity and mineral water. After two months of this war, I am begging for some loaves of bread," he said by telephone.

"It is a war of starvation. They (Israel) forced us out of our homes, they destroyed our homes and businesses and drove us to the south where we can either die under their bombs or die of hunger."

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on Thursday hungry people were stopping its aid trucks to take food and eat it straight away.

In northern Gaza, which bore the brunt of Israel's military offensive during the first phase of the war, between Oct. 7 and the start of a truce on Nov. 24, intense combat has resumed and barely any aid has got through since the truce ended on Dec. 1.

Youssef Fares, a journalist from Jabalia in the north, said staple goods like flour were now so hard to find that prices had gone up by 50 to 100 times compared with before the war.

North cut off

"This morning I went in search of a loaf of bread and I couldn't find it. What is left in the market is candy for children and some cans of beans, which have gone up 50 times in price," he wrote in a diary entry posted on Facebook.

"I saw someone who slaughtered a donkey to feed it to hundreds of his family members," he said.

All aid trucks are entering Gaza through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, but first they have to be inspected by Israel. Since deliveries began on Oct. 20, inspections have been taking place at the Nitzana crossing between Israel and Egypt, forcing trucks to loop from Rafah to Nitzana and back, causing bottlenecks.

Since Wednesday, Israel has begun additional inspections at another location, the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza, which aid officials said should reduce bottlenecks.

UN officials said 152 aid trucks had entered Gaza on Wednesday, up from about 100 a day previously, but this was only a fraction of what was needed to address the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza.

They called on Israel to let trucks directly into Gaza through Kerem Shalom rather than make them go back to Rafah.

A senior UN official with detailed knowledge of the aid delivery issue said Israel could make a significant difference by letting trucks through Kerem Shalom, but was choosing not to.

"It's not a breakthrough in any way since they return them back to Rafah ... It's another bluff," the official said.

Israel started its campaign to destroy the Hamas militant group that controls Gaza after its fighters stormed across the border fence into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, including babies and children, and seizing 240 hostages of all ages.

Since then, Israel's bombardment and siege have killed more than 18,000 people, mostly women and children, according to Palestinian health authorities, and have laid waste to much of the territory, displacing most of its population.

Most Viewed

 
 
Features

Rubble and Grief: Morocco’s High Atlas Marks One Year Since Record Earthquake

The rhythms of normal life have somewhat resumed in some of the province’s larger towns - The AP
The rhythms of normal life have somewhat resumed in some of the province’s larger towns - The AP
TT
TT

Rubble and Grief: Morocco’s High Atlas Marks One Year Since Record Earthquake

The rhythms of normal life have somewhat resumed in some of the province’s larger towns - The AP
The rhythms of normal life have somewhat resumed in some of the province’s larger towns - The AP

The rescue crews and bystanders are long gone but the remnants of homes still sit in piles off to the side of the jagged roads.

A year after nearly 3,000 people died when a record earthquake shook communities throughout Morocco's High Atlas, it still looks like a bomb just went off in villages like Imi N'tala, where dozens of residents died after a chunk of mountainside cracked off and flattened the majority of buildings.

Broken bricks, bent rods of rebar and pieces of kitchen floors remain but have been swept into neater piles alongside plastic tents where the displaced now live. Some await funds to reconstruct their homes. Others await approval of their blueprints.

The region shaken by the earthquake is full of impoverished agricultural villages like Imi N’tala, accessible only via bumpy, unmaintained roads. Associated Press reporters revisited half a dozen of them last week ahead of the first anniversary.

In some places, residents who say they're awaiting governmental action have begun reconstructing buildings on an ad hoc basis. Elsewhere, people tired of the stuffiness of plastic tents have moved back into their cracked homes or decamped to larger cities, abandoning their old lives.

Streets have been neatly swept in towns like Amizmiz and Moulay Brahim, although cracked buildings and piles of rubble remain, much as they were in the days after the quake.

The rhythms of normal life have somewhat resumed in some of the province’s larger towns, where rebuilding efforts on roads, homes, schools and businesses are underway and some residents have been provided metal container homes. But many of those displaced from the more than 55,000 homes destroyed by the temblor remain vulnerable to summer’s heat and winter’s cold, living in plastic tents, impatient to return.

Mohamed Soumer, a 69-year-old retiree who lost his son in last year's earthquake, is angry because local authorities have forbidden him from rebuilding his home on the same steep mountainside due to safety concerns. He now spends his days with his wife in a plastic tent near his now-rubbled home and fears moving elsewhere and restarting his life in a larger, more expensive area.

“Residents want to stay here because they have land where they grow vegetables to make a living,” he said. “If they go somewhere else and abandon this place, they will not be able to live there.”

The government early on promised households monthly stipends in the aftermath of the earthquake and additional funds for seismically safe reconstruction. It said last week that both had been provided to the majority of eligible families and households.

“Specific solutions are being deployed on the ground for difficult cases,” Morocco's Prime Minister's Office said in a statement.

But on the ground, its disbursal has been uneven, residents say, with many still waiting for funds or reconstruction to commence.

Anger has mounted against local authorities in towns like Amizmiz and villages like Talat N'Yaqoub, where residents have protested against their living conditions. They have criticized the slow pace of reconstruction and demanded more investment in social services and infrastructure, which has long gone neglected in contrast with Morocco's urban centers and coastline.

Officials have said rebuilding will cost 120 billion dirhams ($12 billion) and take about five years. The government has rebuilt some stretches of rural roads, health centers and schools but last week the commission tasked with reconstruction acknowledged the need to speed up some home rebuilding.