2023-11-05 23:12:19
The harsh reality experienced by civilians and families trapped in the Gaza Strip was described by a young woman who, just six days after giving birth to her first child, was forced to leave her home in northern Gaza to escape the merciless shelling by Israel and seek refuge in the heart of the Palestinian enclave, where she and her husband now live in a small apartment with 43 other people.
Displaced, scared and in poor health, Salma Radi (name changed at her request) was forced to leave her home and is now struggling to care for the baby, Omar, she had after two IVF attempts, and now Israel’s bombings and the unbearable humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip have made her regret the moment she decided to become a mother.
Randy also described the daily “Golgotha” for parents in the Palestinian enclave, who are unable to feed their children, while even a little bread is hard to come by, as those ovens that have not been bombed have no fuel or electricity to operate.
“I was still bleeding after giving birth when I carried my son”
“I was still bleeding profusely after giving birth when we were forced to leave our home, leaving everything behind. I carried my son and a bag and ran with my husband in the dark for about an hour until we found a taxi,” Randy, 28, told Middle East Eye.
Before dawn at 4 a.m. that day, the couple had received a recorded phone message from the Israeli military, ordering them to evacuate the city in anticipation of imminent shelling of Gaza City.
“We started running around the house not knowing what to do. We took our official papers and our money and left everything else behind, the piles of canned food we had bought at the beginning of the war, our clothes, the beautiful bedroom and the things we had bought for Omar over the last year.” Randy said again.
Randy had started breastfeeding her son, but a few days after they were displaced the baby stopped taking breast milk. “He started crying hysterically every time I tried to nurse him. He would spit out the milk and refuse to take it. He remained about a whole day without food. I didn’t know what to do or why she was refusing to breastfeed,” she continued.
“I regret having a baby and feel guilty for bringing it into this world”
After several attempts at phone calls due to the severe and widespread damage to the communication networks, Randy was finally able to contact her doctor. He told her that stress and fear change the taste and texture of breast milk and that’s why her baby was refusing it.
“Also, I don’t eat well so I can’t produce enough milk. Honestly, for the past few years I have longed to have a child. I cried and prayed day and night that God would give me a baby. But now I regret it. I now regret having a baby and feel guilty for bringing him into this world where he is already suffering and will continue to suffer for the rest of his life as long as he is a Palestinian. I don’t tell my husband this, but I really regret all the days I prayed to have a child,” the woman added.
When Israel launched war on the Gaza Strip in response to the October 7 attack by Hamas, Radi’s husband, Mahmoud, rushed to the supermarket to stock up on food, bread, drinking water and medicine. But when they were forced to leave their home, they failed to take any of it with them.
Today, Randy and her husband cannot return home to get the much-needed food they had bought after Israel cut off the northern Gaza Strip and Gaza City from the central and southern areas of the Palestinian enclave by shelling them roads that connect them.
There is no safe way home
“The only road we have left to go home now is al-Rashid Street, on the coastal road, but anyone who drives there is targeted by Israeli warships and tanks,” he stressed.
On Friday, Israeli forces targeted a group of internally displaced Palestinians driving on al-Rashid Street, heading towards the southern Gaza Strip, which the Israeli military had warned people to move to for their “safety”.
Palestinians in a hospital in Gaza after Israeli shelling
At least eight people, including children, were killed. A few hours later, a group of ambulances carrying a number of wounded people to the Rafah border crossing in the south was also targeted on the same road, even though the Palestinian Ministry of Health had coordinated with the Red Cross their transport in advance.
An ambulance driver was injured and ambulances returned to al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
Groceries and bakeries without supplies
At least 9,448 people have been killed, including 3,900 children and 2,500 women, since Israel began its most aggressive bombing campaign in Gaza.
With Israel cutting off water and food supplies to Gaza, grocery store owners say they will not be able to fill empty shelves until Israel lifts its siege of the already blockaded enclave.
In the Nusayrat refugee camp, one of the most densely populated areas in the central Gaza Strip, tens of thousands of residents have sought refuge from the shelling of Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip.
With few markets and bakeries still open, residents and displaced people are struggling to get food and bread.
“You wait two to three hours in line for a bag of bread”
“With about 44 people, half of whom are children, living together in one house, we constantly need food and running water. “Kids finish their breakfast and 30 minutes later they start asking for lunch or snacks because they’re not getting enough food at each meal,” Randy described.
He added that children, who usually need a loaf of bread for breakfast, now only get a quarter of that and a few pieces of cucumber.
“To get a bag of bread, we have to wake up at dawn and walk about 60 minutes to get to the only bakery in our area that hasn’t been bombed yet,” he said.
“We didn’t expect to experience this in our worst nightmares”
Palestinians in a hospital in Gaza after Israeli shelling
“We wait in a line where hundreds of people are standing, who have come from all over the Strip, and after about two or three hours we finally get a bag of bread,” he added.
“Our worst nightmare”
Due to the lack of flour, water and fuel needed to run the machines and bake the bread, bakery owners now sell each person only one bag of bread to meet the needs of as many families as possible.
Families who need more than one bag must send several members to stand in line outside the bakery and buy a bag each.
“Of course, we don’t cook because we don’t have cooking gas, enough water and vegetables. So we rely mostly on canned food. But canned goods need a lot of bread, so we are always in a never-ending dilemma thinking about what to eat and what to feed the children,” Randy added.
“And of course, since there is no water, we only bathe the children with wet wipes. They have started to have allergies and skin infections due to the lack of sanitary conditions. Every day we say this will end soon, but it just keeps getting worse. Every day we say that they will not target places around us, but they bomb more houses in our neighborhood,” he added.
“We didn’t expect to experience this in our worst nightmares,” he concluded.
“We eat one meal a day, drink dirty water”
Speaking to the BBC, Suher Al Louh, a mother of seven children, who, as she said, drink dirty water and eat one meal every day, mainly canned tuna or beans, presented a similar picture.
“Sometimes I cook a few lentils on an old wood stove. We have solar panels on the roof so we can charge our phones,” he said.
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