2023-12-23 07:00:24
Palestinians rush for a free meal in Rafah, Gaza Strip, December 21, 2023. FATIMA SHBAIR / AP
At the end of September, Steve Sosebee, founder and president of the NGO Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, received a thank you email from Gaza. The medicines and solar energy system sent by his organization to Yaser Al Maqadma helped improve the life of his son, Khalil, who suffered from cerebral palsy. On December 15, the father sent another message to Steve Sosebee. “My soul, my little one, Khalil, is dead. He left us. He was hungry “he wrote.
The father had looked for the food supplements his son needed; but they were no longer available in the Gaza Strip, subject to an Israeli siege for nearly two and a half months. “I found a little, but not enough. It was too late “, he concluded. Steve Sosebee, joined by The worldis still in contact with the family who has been living for several weeks in Khan Younes, in the south of the enclave, after fleeing Gaza City on orders from the Israeli army.
For weeks, international organizations have been multiplying alerts, with ever more alarmist superlatives to describe the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, hoping that Israel will ease the siege. From now on, hunger grips the enclave. Today, 93% of Gazans are “in a situation of acute food insecurity”, according to the latest report from the World Food Program (PAM) published Thursday December 21.
About half of the population is expected to be in the phase “emergency” – which includes very high acute malnutrition and excess mortality – by February 7. And “at least one family in four”or more than half a million people, will face the « phase 5 »that is to say under catastrophic conditions, or “an extreme lack of food, which can lead to a situation of famine”.
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The bag of rice ten times more expensive than before the war
Adel Kaddum, the head of the Secours Islamique France office in Gaza, is today safe in Egypt. This 61-year-old Palestinian left the enclave on December 7, thanks to his American passport. On the day of his departure, a 25 kg bag of rice sold for 500 shekels (126 euros), ten times more expensive than before the war. He and his wife fasted to make sure their children had enough to eat and drink. “There were five adults and my three children, but we only had six liters of water a day for all of us, he explains. To survive, at the end, when we could no longer find flour and rice, we only ate zaatar [un mélange d’origan, de sumac, de sésame et sel]. »
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