When Bakr al Naji realizes that the food rations he is preparing for a charity in the Gaza Strip are not enough to fill the stomachs of the hungry children arriving, he feels a pang in his heart.
In Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, thousands of people line up at the Tkiyeh center to receive meager rations, Naji says.
This 28-year-old man fled Gaza City and now volunteers to help other displaced people like him.
“For me, the most difficult moment is when I deliver meals,” he told AFP.
“It hurts my heart when there is nothing left and the children complain that they haven't eaten enough,” he says.
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He often gives in to their requests and gives them their own ration.
According to the UN Hunger Monitoring Center (IPC), as of early December, more than two million people in the Gaza Strip were suffering from severe food insecurity and more than 378,000 people were at “catastrophic” levels.
An IPC report this week said the threat of famine in Gaza was “increasing with each passing day” and warned that the entire population could face levels of “acute food insecurity” within weeks.
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Since the conflict began on October 7, humanitarian aid has been scarce in this besieged Palestinian territory, where the population lives under bombs dropped by Israel.
After its militants' unprecedented attack on October 7, which killed around 1,140 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli data, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas.
According to Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules this Palestinian territory, the Israeli military response has left 20,258 dead, mostly women and minors.
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In Rafah, a crowd gathers behind a barrier, waiting to receive rations from the large, steaming pots.
Adults gather there, but also many children, waiting with bowls and pots for food.
“Lentils and bulgur disappeared from stores, as did peas and white beans,” said Khaled Sheikh al-Eid, an employee of the charity, which serves about 10,000 people a day.
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This relief center operates thanks to donations and the work of volunteers who juggle with the few supplies they receive.
“A can of beans went from one shekel ($0.28) to six,” Naji says.
“People were poor even before the war; even those who had jobs could barely feed their children. “How are they supposed to do that now?” he explains. “I’m afraid people will starve.”
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Salam Haidar, 36, arrives early in the morning to wait outside the food center.
“They told me it was too early, but I want to make sure they give me something,” said the mother of three.
“My son cries when he sees another child with a piece of bread. He tried to steal candy from another child and I had to tell him that was wrong,” she explains.
Nur Barbaj, five months pregnant and displaced from her home in Khan Yunis, has been waiting for hours for this center in Rafah to open.
“Sometimes I send my eldest son, who is 12 years old, but he got hit. He comes back crying and empty-handed,” says Barbaj.
“Without this center we would have nothing,” he added.
“My children have lost a lot of weight, they wake up at night from hunger,” he says, saying he is thinking about returning to his home in Khan Younis even though fighting between the Israeli army and Hamas militants is concentrated there. .
“It is better to die at home as a martyr than to die of hunger,” he says.
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