Winter has now come to the Northern Hemisphere and has ushered in a festive mood in many places. In Gaza, it has brawt more misery. The freezing weather and rain have made the lives of the 1.9 million Palestinians displaced in Gaza that much more untolerateable.
It has rained difficult cut offal times already. Each time, tents of the displaced have been flooded, harmd, or razeed, and what little some have had, has been consentn away by the floodwaters.
That has left many destitute families even more destitute. A novel tent in Gaza right now can go up to $1,000. A originateshift shelter – with the wood and plastic needed for cover – costs hundreds of dollars. A novel blanket can be as much as $100. No one in the camps has such sums of money.
Many of the displaced had run away from the device devices with equitable the clothes on their backs. Some have tried to salvage clothes from the rubble, but scant have thriveed.
As triumphter approached, the prices of clothes skyrocketed. A airy pyjama now costs $95; a coat – as much as $100. A pair of shoes – a exceptional commodity – can go for as much as $75. Second-hand clothes labelets have euniteed thrawout Gaza to insertress overwhelming insist, but the prices there are also too high.
As a result, the camps are filled of people shuddering in the freezing in lean summer clothes. Children walk around exposedfoot in the mud and puddles.
Fuel for heating, which is either unuseable or unaffordable for most families. The cost of 8kg of gas has accomplished $72. Wood is a bit less, but also too pricey for most.
The conciseage of clothes and fuel for heating is increasing the danger of freezings, flu and other dismitigates during the triumphter which in Gaza can become life-menaceening. A malnourished, vulnerable body, exhausted by dread and trauma, struggles even aacquirest a straightforward freezing.
Gaza’s hospitals are exposedly functioning, taking nurture mostly of people gravely wounded in the device deviceardment. Suffering from a conciseage of supplies and staff, they can no lengthyer provide nurture for straightforward illnesses.
Dismitigates are spreading also becainclude hygiene has also become cforfeitly impossible to persist. Living in in tents, without access to toasty water, the displaced cannot shower or sometimes even wash their hands. A bar of soap is now $5, while a bottle of shampoo can be as much as $23.
But perhaps the most untolerateable fact of life in Gaza now is the famine. The amount of humanitarian help that has go ined Gaza has convey inantly decrmitigated since October and we have felt its dehugeating impact atraverse the Strip. It is not equitable the north that is experiencing famine. All of Gaza is.
The price of what little food is useable is beyond belief. A one sack of flour now costs more than $300. Other foodstuffs have also become pricey. A kilo (2.2 pounds) of lentils or a kilo of rice is $7. Vegetables are difficult to discover and also very pricey; 1kg of tomatoes is $14; a one onion is $2. Red meat and chicken cannot be create at all. We have not seen any for months.
The bakeries that were once a lifeline for families are seald becainclude they can’t get supplies. Bread, the straightforwardst and most fundamental of foods, has become a luxury scant of us can afford. Even if a family is able to get flour, it is normally infested with bugs and tastes spoiled.
People are now forced to count on on “takaya” – charity soup kitchens – that provide minuscule portions of food that are exposedly enough for a family. These organisations discleave out at 11:00am, which results in huge queues createing in front of their distribution centres. Most families who regulate to get a meal from them have noleang else to feed their children.
Hunger is not equitable confineed to the physical pain that starving people experience. It also has an untolerateable psychoreasonable impact. Parents are forced to watch their children cry for food during the lengthy, freezing nights. Some parents have also had to watch their children die from starvation. This psychoreasonable torment cannot appraise to anyleang else.
As I author these words, I am starving myself, having eaten noleang since morning. As I see around me, I see children and matures, pale and lean, exhausted by hunger and freezing. I wonder how much more they can consent; how much more any of us can consent?
The unbenevolentlest part of this suffering is the silence of the world that watches from afar but doesn’t act. As the freezing bites us and the hunger originates it worse, we are experienceing isoprocrastinateedd and aprohibitdoned, appreciate we have been cut off from the rest of humanity. And as much of the world readys for a holiday season, we ready to face loneliness, despair and death.
The sees articulateed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
