At first he believed that the war would end quickly. Then he was injured, his house destroyed and had to survive “25 days with nothing.” So Youssef Mehna ended up traveling to the south of the Gaza Strip like thousands of others.
Sitting on trucks, crammed into cars, donkey-drawn carts or on foot, thousands of Palestinians are fleeing the Israeli army’s incessant attacks in the north of the small strip of land between Israel and Egypt and the Mediterranean.
Youssef Mehna, who left his refugee camp in Jabaliya at 7 a.m., was hoping to reach Rafah, the last city before Egypt. But his journey ended at the entrance to Khan Younès, after 25 kilometers and eight hours of strenuous travel.
“No pancakes”
“I have already paid 500 shekels,” or $177, “to arrive from Jabaliya and I have nothing left to go on with,” the man with a distorted face, surrounded by his six children, told AFP.
Because his sick wife is in a wheelchair, he had to rent “donkey-drawn carriages, trucks, cars” for short journeys, as few drivers accept long journeys for fuel reasons.
Sometimes he had to walk while pushing his wife’s chair, he told AFP.
Hundreds of families are waiting around him. Children sit on the floor or sleep on a parent’s shoulder.
Almost every second house has been destroyed or damaged in this Palestinian territory, which, according to the UN, is now home to more than one and a half million displaced people.
According to the Israeli army, within three days almost 200,000 people left the north of the Gaza Strip towards the south, which was relatively spared.
With this influx, rents that were around $150 a month are now between $500 and $1,000.
“Dust and Cold”
“I don’t even have a pancake of bread to feed my children,” protests Oum Yaaqoub, 42, who arrived in Khan Younes three days ago with her husband and seven children.
“I’ve been looking everywhere since six in the morning, but I can’t give them food,” she screams.
If access to bread is problematic in the south, it is because “the only flour mill in the Gaza Strip is no longer functioning due to a lack of electricity and fuel,” explains the UN.
According to Israeli authorities, Hamas, which is in power in Gaza, launched an unprecedented attack in Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping more than 240 hostages. According to the Hamas Health Ministry, Israel has continued to bomb the Gaza Strip since then, killing more than 11,000 people, mostly civilians.
According to the United Nations, just over 80% of Gazans lived in poverty before this conflict and almost two thirds were dependent on international aid. Today, with flour prices soaring, things are even worse. But hunger is not Oum Yaaqoub’s only concern.
“My husband has heart problems,” she says, and her daughter Rim, 20, “is usually in the hospital bed.” “But we all sleep on the floor, in the dust, and don’t have a single blanket, even though it’s very cold at night.”
“Rice for seven people”
Her husband Atef Abou Jarad, 47, remains with dozens of other displaced people in a classroom on the first floor of the school where the family is staying.
“I don’t have a shekel to buy food for my children,” he complains.
In any case, there is a shortage of everything in the shops: mineral water, baby milk, children’s diapers, pasta.
A small amount of food aid still reaches the displaced people, says Mr. Abou Jarad: “a portion of rice shared by seven people.” “So I take a little spoon and tell them I’m not hungry anymore so they eat,” he says.
As for water, you have to get it from a tap where there is a long line of displaced people. “People are crowding and I don’t have the strength […] with my illnesses,” he whispers.
Her daughter Rim had to give up the painkillers she had been taking since birth because she suffered from spinal and shoulder deformities.
“The pain keeps me from sleeping, but we can’t buy any medicine,” she says resignedly, her stomach also pounding with hunger. Because, she says, she “no longer has to feed” her anemic little siblings.