With hunger and disease spreading across Gaza and hospitals short of crucial supplies, an aid worker in Gaza City has told RFI of life under siege – describing how families are packed into shrinking safe zones, queuing for water for hours and struggling to find food and medicine as the conflict pushes the territory to the brink.
The catastrophe in Gaza shows no sign of ending. Under relentless bombardment and gripped by hunger, the territory is close to collapse. Amid the devastation, humanitarian workers – most of them ordinary civilians – fight each day to stay alive.
RFI spoke with Riyad, a Palestinian from Gaza City and a member of the NGO Secours Islamique France (SIF), which provides emergency aid and long-term support in crisis zones.
RFI: What is the situation in Gaza City since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he was taking control?
Riyad: The little aid entering Gaza is nowhere near enough. Gaza City has nearly one million residents, most displaced to the west – crammed into just 10 to 15 percent of the city’s territory. The rest has been emptied, declared red zones, and is now under Israeli army control.
Since Netanyahu’s announcement, we have been bracing for a new evacuation order and another complete cut-off. We are looking for safe places, but even the Mawasi area (a narrow coastal strip in southern Gaza designated as a humanitarian zone) is already overcrowded. There is no more space. We hope for a solution, but we must prepare for the worst.
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RFI: Tell us about the shortages of medicine, food and water?
Riyad: It is now harder to find medicine than food. Nothing reaches the hospitals, many of which have been destroyed. Medical centres are overwhelmed with the wounded and malnourished, from north to south. Doctors and nurses cannot treat everyone – there are shortages of medicines, equipment and even staff.
Food is also scarce since the closure of the truck crossings. The media talk about aid entering Gaza, but it is desperately insufficient. This is the worst humanitarian crisis in our history. Sometimes we go two days or more without eating. When aid does arrive, more than 90 percent is seized by desperate, hungry people. Many risk their lives to reach these deliveries, knowing they may never return.
My own family has never received aid. Food in markets is exorbitantly priced. Two weeks ago, I paid €50 for a kilo of flour. Sometimes we find tins of chickpeas – expensive, but better than nothing. People are dying from hunger and malnutrition: more than 200 so far, half of them children. There is no milk for babies, no vitamins, nothing that could save Gaza’s children.
Water is no better. The main supply line was bombed a month ago. Those with solar panels keep some neighbourhood wells running, but drinking water still comes from tanker trucks. Every day, we queue for over an hour with small tanks. This is our daily routine.
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RFI: Can SIF work on the ground in such conditions?
Riyad: Despite closures and soaring prices, our duty at SIF is to support the most vulnerable in Gaza, including the displaced. Fresh vegetables are scarce, but we try to harvest and distribute what we can. Two weeks ago, we managed to deliver nearly 5,000 parcels of vegetables and hot meals, plus a little rice – despite its high price. If more aid could enter, we would expand our work. We also sponsor almost 6,000 orphaned children across the Gaza Strip.
RFI: Are you free to do your work?
Riyad: The problems are constant – logistical, security and those imposed by the Israeli army. Some media do not report the reality. In the past two weeks, only 112 trucks entered Gaza, compared to 8,400 that were supposed to. Ninety percent of those were attacked and looted. None reached the official UNRWA or World Food Programme warehouses.
RFI: Do the people still have hope?
Riyad: Everyone here feels desperate because of the international silence. We appreciate speeches, but words are not enough. We need real pressure to end this war and this catastrophe. We are waiting for the international community to say stop to the massacre.
Netanyahu’s decision shows he does not want to stop. People will be pushed further south, then expelled to other countries. This will destroy the Palestinian cause – and the population.
I feel destroyed inside, but I try not to show it. We have to be strong for our families and our community. We are fighting against suffering and death. It is a fight for life.
(Adaped from this interview in French by RFI's Anne Bernas)
