{"id":304522,"date":"2024-12-31T12:27:21","date_gmt":"2024-12-31T17:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/?post_type=document&p=304522"},"modified":"2024-12-31T12:27:21","modified_gmt":"2024-12-31T17:27:21","slug":"wfp-stories-31dec24","status":"publish","type":"document","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/document\/wfp-stories-31dec24\/","title":{"rendered":"WFP Stories: Destroyed homes, destroyed dreams: hungry Gazans end a grim year"},"content":{"rendered":"

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31 December 2024<\/p>\n

Jonathan Dumont<\/strong><\/p>\n

WFP\u2019s emergency communications head recently visited the strip \u2014 here\u2019s what he saw<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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\"Gazans

Gazans in Khan Younis desperate to receive WFP rice. WFP\/Jonathan Dumont<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>

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\u201cI need food, man,\u201d Abdul Rahmen told me.<\/p>\n

We were in the southwestern Gazan city of Khan Younis, where men ladled out steaming rice into bowls thrust out by a desperate crowd. One boy was crying, afraid the food, supplied by the World Food Programme (WFP), would run out before his turn.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was ambitious. I had dreams,\u201d \u00a0Rahmen said, describing expectations as shattered as the buildings around us. \u201cBut I need food. I can\u2019t buy bread.\u201d<\/p>\n

I had arrived in Gaza the day before, making a 10-hour journey from Amman on a bus packed with humanitarian workers. Some of that time was spent waiting at Israel\u2019s Kerem Shalom border crossing into the strip\u00a0\u2013\u00a0one of the few available avenues to deliver life-saving humanitarian aid.<\/p>\n

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\"WFP's

WFP’s Jonathan Dumont in Gaza, where delivering humanitarian aid can be a risky business. WFP\/Jonathan Dumont<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>

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A massive backlog of urgently needed supplies\u00a0\u2013\u00a0including boxes of medicine, food and other aid\u00a0\u2013\u00a0awaited clearance there, and for the few available trucks and authorized drivers able to navigate destroyed roads, desperate crowds and armed gangs to deliver them.<\/p>\n

My 10-day visit to Gaza, in early December, was my first since before the war broke out nearly 15 months ago. As head of WFP\u2019s emergency communications, my job is to listen, record and share the stories of people in places like Gaza\u00a0\u2013\u00a0to give a voice to those who would otherwise not be heard.<\/p>\n

The size of the US city of Detroit, Gaza today is a mountain of rubble. I\u2019ve gone to many conflict zones this past year\u00a0\u2013\u00a0gang-ravaged Haiti, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan\u2019s war-torn capital Khartoum\u00a0\u2013\u00a0but Gaza is on a different scale. On one side, waves stroke a Mediterranean beachfront, an illusion of serenity. On the other lies endless destruction, black smoke rising from smouldering buildings.<\/p>\n

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\"Khan

Khan Younis, like many parts of Gaza, has few remaining buildings taller than four stories. WFP\/Jonathan Dumont<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>

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There’s another difference from many war zones: there’s no way for Gazans to escape the conflict. They are trapped.<\/p>\n

And hunger is skyrocketing. More than 90 percent of the population faces\u00a0“crisis” or worse levels food insecurity<\/em><\/a>, according to the latest expert findings. More than 300,000 people are likely experiencing catastrophic hunger\u00a0\u2013\u00a0the highest level of food insecurity.<\/p>\n

Cutting rations<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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\"A

A small boy scoops up the last rice grains in his bowl. Hunger is soaring in Gaza and the WFP food allowed to enter is limited. WFP\/Jonathan Dumont<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>

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The WFP food allowed to enter the strip can only meet one-third of what we need to reach the hungriest people. Over the months, we\u2019ve been forced to cut rations, and then cut again. In December, we planned to reach 1.1 million people with just 10 days worth of food, which includes canned goods, tomato paste, oil and wheat flour.<\/p>\n

Besieged North Gaza is the hungriest place. Over the past two months, barely any supplies have been allowed to trickle in.<\/p>\n

\u201cBread is the most important food for people nowadays, because it\u2019s so cheap,\u201d baker Ghattas Hakoura told me at a WFP-supported commercial bakery in Gaza City, in the northern part of the strip. Men and women were picking up loaves of pita, costing three shekels, or less than US$1 per packet, in separate, tightly controlled lines.<\/p>\n

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\"Staff

Staff prepare bags of pita bread at a WFP-supported bakery in Gaza City. WFP\/Photolibrary<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>

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\u201cPeople are hungry and they\u2019re angry,\u201d Hakoura added. \u201cThey\u2019ve lost their homes, their jobs, their families. There is no meat, no vegetables\u00a0\u2013\u00a0and if we do have vegetables, they are very expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 25-kg bag of wheat flour can sell for US$150. In an enclave where farmers once harvested citrus, vegetables and strawberries, I saw small peppers selling at a Gaza City market for US$195 a kilo. Nobody was buying. Nobody could afford them.<\/p>\n

Ibrahim al-Balawi, cradling his small daughter, told me she\u2019d never drunk a glass of milk in her life. She\u2019d known nothing but war.<\/p>\n

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\"Ibrahim

Ibrahim al-Balawi (L), holding his daughter, as he speaks to WFP’s Jonathan Dumont. The little girl has known nothing but war. WFP<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>

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That\u2019s a worry for so many parents in Gaza, a place where you hear the sound of drones and explosions 24\/7, coming from the air, land and sea.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want my kids\u2019 future to be similar to any other kid living in any Arab country,\u201d Hind Hassouna, a mother of four, told me in Khan Younis, after our food distribution there. \u201cTo live a decent life, wear decent clothes, eat decent food and have a good life. The most important thing is to be free from fear\u00a0\u2013\u00a0just like any kid in any Arab country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Surviving\u2028<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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\"Hind

Hind Hassouna simply wants her kids to have a normal, hunger-free future. WFP<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>

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Today, Hassouna\u2019s children walk 1.5 km each way to fetch water. As she spoke in her tent home\u00a0\u2013\u00a0which could easily be toppled by wind or flooded by winter rains\u00a0\u2013\u00a0they spooned up their small portions of WFP rice. It was possibly their only meal of the day. One little boy slowly cleaned his plate of every last grain, a small smile on his face.<\/p>\n

Children are experiencing the worst of the war. As we drove to the food distribution at Khan Younis, I spotted a dead horse amid the rubble. Nearby, a little girl picked through the trash, looking for food.<\/p>\n

Later, driving to Gaza City in our armoured vehicle, along the militarized Netzarim corridor dividing the enclave\u2019s north and south, we saw dead bodies scattered to the left and right, decomposing in the sun. A few hundred metres later, a small group of women and children headed in that direction, carrying their belongings. They looked hot and tired.<\/p>\n

How will such experiences affect Gaza\u2019s children when they grow up? What will happen to their generation?<\/p>\n

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\"Abu

Abu Bilal shows WFP’s Jon Dumont his precarious shelter, built under two concrete slabs from his former apartment building. WFP<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>

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Amid the devastation, Gazans are embracing any semblance of life they can create. In Khan Younis, Abu Bilal dug out his destroyed home, and used the rubble to rebuild the walls. Cement slabs from what had been a multistorey apartment building formed a tenuous lean-to. He showed me around his place, complete with a basic toilet and makeshift plastic sink.<\/p>\n

\u201cDangerous,\u201d he said of his shelter, which could easily collapse during a storm or airstrike.<\/p>\n

In what had been a densely populated neighborhood, Nabil Azab also showed me around the remains of his home. A former taxi driver, he pointed out the twisted carcass of the vehicle that once earned his livelihood. Like many Gazan families, his has been displaced multiple times, moving from one tent settlement to another.<\/p>\n

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\"Nabil

Nabil Azab (R) stands near the greens his family is tending. Behind are the remains of the apartment building his family still lives in despite the danger. WFP\/Jonathan Dumont<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>

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When an airstrike hit his tent in the southern city of Rafah\u00a0\u2013\u00a0injuring him and other family members\u00a0\u2013\u00a0that was enough. They, too, cleared out the debris from their partially destroyed home in Khan Younis and moved back in. Their four-storey building is among the few still standing in the area, and leans precariously atop a sandy ridge. In the ground below, the family grows lettuce and other greens to help survive. But it\u2019s not enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look at my little daughter as she cries asking for food and I feel helpless,\u201d Azab told me. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing that I can do for her. Nothing at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  31 December 2024 Jonathan Dumont WFP\u2019s emergency communications head recently visited the strip \u2014 here\u2019s what he saw     \u201cI need food, man,\u201d Abdul Rahmen told me. We were in the southwestern Gazan city of Khan Younis, where men ladled out steaming rice into bowls thrust out by a desperate crowd. One boy […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[1329,6926],"document-source":[2109],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[2517,1769,1945,2057,2005,6870,2349,1745],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[6542],"class_list":["post-304522","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-press-release","document-category-stories","document-source-world-food-programme-wfp","document-subject-access-and-movement","document-subject-armed-conflict","document-subject-assistance","document-subject-food","document-subject-gaza-strip","document-subject-hunger","document-subject-living-conditions","document-subject-refugees-and-displaced-persons","entity-united-nations-system","document-language-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/304522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/304522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304527,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/304522\/revisions\/304527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=304522"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=304522"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=304522"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=304522"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=304522"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=304522"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=304522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}