“Did you eat today?”: Gaza’s voices talk about hunger and survival? Israeli conflict news

This is not a warning.

The famine has already reached In Gaza. It is not a metaphor, just as it is not a prediction. It is daily.

A child who wakes up asks the biscuit that no longer exists. A student who studies exams while fainting hunger.

She is the mother who cannot explain to her son why there is no bread.

This is the silence of the world that makes this horror possible.

Children of famine

Nour, the daughter of my older sister Tasnim, is three years old; I was born on May 11, 2021. My sister’s son, Ezz aldin, was born on December 25, 2023 – in the first months of the war.

One morning, Tasnim entered our area carrying them in her arms. I looked at her and asked the question that would not leave my mind: “Tasnim, do they understand the light and the elderly hunger? Do they know that we are in a famine? “

“Yes,” she said immediately. “Even Ezz, who knows only war and antiquities, understands. He has never seen real food in his life. He does not know what” options “.

She imitated his child’s voice: “Obz! Obza! Obza!” – His way to say “Khabza” (a piece of bread).

She had to tell him, “There is no flour, my love. Your father went out to find some.”

Ezz aldin is not known about a ceasefire, border or politics. He is not concerned with military operations or diplomatic statements.

He just wants one piece of bread. And the world does not give it anything.

She learned the light of counting and reciting the alphabet from her mother. Before the war, she loved chocolate, biscuits. She was the first grandson in our family, raining with games, snacks and small dresses.

Now, every morning, she wakes up and moves to her mother with wide eyes. “Go bought 15 chocolate and biscuit,” she says.

It says 15 because it is the largest number you know. It looks like enough. It is enough to fill her stomach, enough to return the world she knew. But there is nothing to buy. Nothing left.

Where is your humanity? Look at it. Then tell me how justice looks.

Five days after hunger

I watched a video of breaking my heart. A man grieved on the bodies of seven of his family. In despair, he cried, “We are hungry.”

They were starving for several days, then an Israeli surveillance plane hit its tent near the Tabin School in Darraj, north of Gaza.

“This is the young man I was riding,” the man cried in the video. “Look at what became them,” while touched their heads once.

Some people still do not understand. This is not about whether we have money. It is about Total absence of food. Even if you are a millionaire in Gaza at the present time, you will not find bread. You will not find a bag of rice or a box of milk. The markets are empty. The stores are destroyed. Shopping centers have been flattened. The shelves are not naked – they left.

We used to grow our food. Gaza once export fruits and vegetables. We sent strawberries to Europe. Our prices were cheaper in the region.

A kilo (2.2 pounds) of grapes or apples? Three shekels ($ 0.90). A kilo of chicken from Gaza farms? Nine shekels ($ 2.70). Now, we cannot find a single egg.

Before that: the weight of the huge watermelon from Khan Yunis is 21 kg (46 rugs) and costs 18 shekels ($ 5). Today: The same watermelon will cost $ 250 – if you can find it.

Avocado, which was once considered a luxurious fruit, through the tonn in Malassi, was Khan Yunis and his welfare. They used to cost the dollar a kilo. We had self-sufficiency in dairy, also-cheese and yogurt made in Shujaya by local hands.

Our children were not spoiled – they only had basic rights. Breakfast means milk. Shattir with cheese. Boiled egg. Now, everything is cut.

Regardless of the way I explain to children, they cannot understand the words “famine” or “high prices”. They only know their blank stomachs.

Even seafood – which was one of the essential elements in the Gaza regime – disappeared. Despite the strict hunting restrictions, we used to send fish to the West Bank. Now, even our sea is silent.

With all the respect for Turkish coffee, the coffee did not taste until Mazaj coffee was tried from Gaza.

He had a power you could feel in your bones.

These are not expectations. Father now. Most of us are homeless. Not an employee. Mourning.

If we turn one meal a day, we eat it at night. It is not a feast. It is rice. Pasta. Perhaps the soup. Canned beans.

The things you keep as a backup copy in your wardrobe. Here, it is a luxury.

In most days, we drink water and nothing more. When hunger becomes too much, we move through old images and images of meals from the past, just to remember how the life it tasted once.

They are starving during the exams

As always, our university exams are connected to the Internet, because the campus is ruins.

We live in genocide. However, we are trying to study.

I am a student in the second year.

We have just finished our final exams for the first semester. We studied hunger, drones, for persistent fear. This is not what university people think.

We took tests on the empty stomach, under the screaming of warplanes. We tried to remember the dates while forgetting the last time we tasted the bread.

Every day, I speak with my friends – Huda, Mariam and Esraa – on WhatsApp. We check each other, and ask the same questions over and over again:

“What did you eat today?”

“Can you even focus?”

These are our conversations – not about lectures or tasks, but about hunger, headache, dizziness and how we are still standing. One of them says: “My stomach hurts me a lot to think.” Another says, “I almost collapsed when she stood.”

However, we continue. Our last exam was on July 15. Our adherence, not because we were strong, but because we had no choice. We did not want to lose a semester. But even say that it is very small compared to the truth.

Study during the hunger of chips away from your soul.

One day, during the exams, an air strike hit our neighbors. The explosion shook the walls.

A moment ago, I was thinking how hungry I was. After a moment, I didn’t feel anything.

I didn’t have.

I remained on my office and continued to study. Not because I was fine, but because there is no other choice.

They are compelling us, then they blame us

Allow me to be clear: the people of Gaza intentionally starve. We are not lucky – we are victims of war crimes.

Open the crossings. Let aid enter. Let food enter. Let medicine enter.

Gaza does not need sympathy. We can rebuild. We can recover. But first, stop hunger.

Killing, hunger, and the siege are not just conditions – they are actions imposed on us. Language reveals those who try to hide from the official.

So we will continue to say: We were killed by the Israeli occupation. We hunted by the Israeli occupation. We have surrounded the Israeli occupation.