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 that his organization sent 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 has left us. He was hungry,” he wrote.
The father had been looking for the nutritional supplements his son needed; However, they were no longer available in the Gaza Strip as it was under an Israeli siege for almost two and a half months. “I found a little, but not enough. It was too late,” he concluded. Steve Sosebee, contacted by Le Monde, is still in contact with the family, who have been living in Khan Younès, in the south of the enclave, for several weeks after fleeing Gaza City on orders from the Israeli army.
For weeks, international organizations have been multiplying their warnings and describing increasingly alarming superlatives about the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, hoping that Israel will ease the siege. From now on, hunger grips the enclave. According to the latest World Food Program (WFP) report released on Thursday, December 21, 93% of Gazans are now “in a situation of acute food insecurity.”
By February 7, about half of the population is expected to be in the “emergency phase,” which includes very high levels of acute malnutrition and excess mortality. And “at least one in four families”, i.e. more than half a million people, will be confronted with “Phase 5”, i.e. catastrophic conditions, i.e. “an extreme lack of food that could lead to famine.”
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Wael Al-Dahdouh, reporter at Al-Jazeera: the voice of the damned of Gaza
The sack of rice was ten times more expensive than before the war
Adel Kaddum, head of the Secours Islamique France office in Gaza, is safe in Egypt today. This 61-year-old Palestinian left the enclave on December 7 thanks to his American passport. On the day of his departure, a 25kg bag of rice was sold for 500 shekels (126 euros), ten times more expensive than before the war. He and his wife fasted to ensure 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, in the end, when we couldn't find flour and rice anymore, we ate only za'atar [un mélange d’origan, de sumac, de sésame et sel]. »
You still have 75% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.