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- "We don't want to be heroes. We just want to live": What are the refugees in Gaza talking about?
"We don't want to be heroes. We just want to live": What are the refugees in Gaza talking about?
The humanitarian situation in Gaza is beyond the brink of disaster, the International Committee of the Red Cross told Izvestia. Every day, people struggle for survival, food and to provide "at least some kind of protection and security," the organization noted. Earlier, the media reported that Hamas and Israel had agreed on a 60-day truce plan. The White House said that the Israeli side supported him, but there is no clarity about the reaction of Hamas. Experts believe that a cease-fire is unlikely. But while politicians are negotiating the terms of ending the conflict, the main victims are civilians in the Gaza Strip. The consequences of the humanitarian blockade are described in the Izvestia article.
The ceasefire plan
The situation around a possible truce in the Gaza Strip remains uncertain. Earlier, Al Arabiya and The Times of Israel reported that Hamas and Israel had agreed to accept a 60-day ceasefire plan proposed by US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.
US Special Envoy Steven Witkoff
According to The Times of Israel, it involves the release by Israel of 125 Palestinians sentenced to life in prison for terrorist crimes, 1,111 people detained by the Israeli side after the attacks on October 7, 2023, as well as the transfer of 180 bodies of Gazans killed in the fighting.
On October 7, 2023, Israel was subjected to a massive rocket attack from the Gaza Strip, and members of the Hamas group penetrated into the border areas, where they killed more than a thousand people and captured hundreds of hostages.
For its part, Hamas must release 10 living Israeli hostages and hand over the bodies of 18 more people on the first and seventh days of the cease-fire in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
In addition, the plan implies the cessation of offensive operations and the restriction of the use of airspace in the Gaza Strip by Israel (for 10 hours daily or for 12 hours on the days of the exchange of hostages and prisoners).
Humanitarian aid should also be sent to the Gaza Strip immediately. At the same time, aid will be distributed not only through a specially created Fund for Humanitarian Assistance to Gaza (GHF), supported by the United States and Israel, but also through the structures of the United Nations and international humanitarian organizations.
According to the American plan, negotiations on the terms of a cease-fire should begin on the first day of the truce, and if they do not end within 60 days, the cease-fire period may be extended. Following the negotiations, Hamas will have to release the remaining hostages from the "58 list" provided by Israel. The moderator of the negotiations between Israel and Hamas will be the special envoy of the American president Stephen Witkoff, and the guarantors of the ceasefire will be personally US President Donald Trump, Egypt and Qatar.
The fact that Israel accepted the ceasefire proposals was announced by White House spokeswoman Carolyn Leavitt. Nevertheless, according to the Israeli state television and radio company Kan, Hamas expressed dissatisfaction with Witkoff's plan, since it does not guarantee the final end of the war and the complete withdrawal of the IDF military from the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian movement is likely to refuse to support the proposed plan, according to Alexander Kargin, an expert on Israel and the Middle East. In his opinion, there will be neither an exchange of prisoners nor a 60-day truce.
— The bottom line is that Israel and Hamas have fundamentally different positions.: Hamas is not going to release all the hostages, because if it does, Israel will not leave Hamas in power in Gaza, and Hamas is doing everything to remain in power in the strip. All this is unacceptable for Israel, the country's authorities are not going to leave the group in Gaza and will somehow ensure that Hamas is eliminated and there would be a new power structure. Spears are breaking around the question of whether Hamas will remain in power or not," Alexander Kargin said.
The official truce between Israel and Hamas ended on March 1, but the fighting did not resume for some time due to attempts by the mediators to involve the parties in continuing negotiations.
At the same time, the Jewish State cut off electricity supplies to the desalination plant in the sector and closed the entrance to trucks with humanitarian aid. And on the night of March 18, the IDF resumed attacks on Gaza. In mid-May, Israel announced the start of a ground operation in the Gaza Strip, "Gideon's Chariots."
The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip
The Gaza Ministry of Health reports that more than 54,000 residents of the Gaza Strip have died during the war. According to the International Organization for Migration, over 600,000 people have been forced to leave their homes since the end of the ceasefire on March 18. At the same time, the situation in Gaza is deteriorating.
—Come on, fly in," Muhammad Rajab al—Masri tells his children as he enters the tent. In his hands is a pot of orange watery soup. — Today a kind man brought us peas.
Muhammad's house, like most Gazans', was destroyed during the war. He, his wife and three preschool-age daughters managed to escape, but their mother and brother died in that very house. Muhammad's other brother ended up in an Israeli prison.
— We left money, clothes, and children's toys under the rubble of our house in the town of Beit Lahiya. We fled from there under shelling. When we came to the tent camp, we asked for 15 million shekels for one tent, but we only had 100 shekels. One of our relatives lent us money and bought a tent. But it's so hot here that it's like an oven inside the tent," Muhammad Rajab al-Masri tells Izvestia.
According to him, neither he nor most Gazans have money to buy food, so the only way to get food for themselves and their children is through humanitarian supplies, but they don't come every day.
On May 30, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated that only 600 out of 900 humanitarian aid trucks were allowed to travel to the Israeli border with Gaza. This is not the first time a similar situation has occurred. On May 20, The Guardian reported that only five trucks had reached the sector, but social workers had not even received permission to distribute this supply. And in March, the UN said that at least 80 public kitchens would fail if Israel did not end the blockade.
— There are more than 6 thousand families in the port of Gaza, and we have been queuing since early morning to get water and food, mostly lentils. I haven't seen flour in over 20 days. Children dream of bread. Yesterday my daughter asked for a flatbread, but I couldn't buy it. She cried all night. I used to tell her stories to calm her down and lull her to sleep," Muhammad Rajab al-Masri continues.
Getting water for drinking and for hygiene procedures is also a problem.
"We haven't washed in 17 days,— says Muhammad.
Muhammad's daughters are sitting in a tent with bare feet: "We have no clothes for children, no blankets. The ground we sit on is full of insects and diseases, so children have a lot of rashes on their bodies," he explains.
— The humanitarian situation in Gaza is beyond catastrophic. 600 days of military operations, combined with severe restrictions on the import and distribution of humanitarian aid, continue to cause enormous and widespread suffering to the civilian population. Every day, people are fighting for survival, for the sustenance of their families and for finding at least some protection and security," the International Committee of the Red Cross commented on the situation to Izvestia.
The problem with water remains particularly acute in the Gaza Strip. At the end of March, Doctors Without Borders issued a statement that Israel was using water as a weapon against civilians. In early April, the Anadolu agency reported that the IDF had stopped supplying water to the Israeli company Mekorot in the sector, thus leaving 70% of the exclave without water.
This is superimposed on the already existing shortage of clean water in the region due to the long-term blockade, destroyed infrastructure and groundwater pollution. At the time, Israel said the water shutdown was a response to Hamas' unwillingness to extend the first phase of the cease—fire agreement.
Salma Muhammad Hussein al-Natour showed Izvestia how her life is arranged in a tent camp. Salma takes a ladle of water from a small bucket with a lid, which is enough for her to wash a frying pan and a couple of forks. The appliances and dishes dry on the grass, and the basin serves as a sink. Salma takes a ladle of water from the same bucket to wash her child's hair. The baby stands with his feet on a brick while his mother cleans his hair without soap and shampoo.
Salma's tent has several thin mattresses, a couple of pillows and backpacks with things that were rescued from the ruins of the house. "I still haven't been able to make a toilet for the children, they don't even have that," she says. A red-haired kitten shares shelter with Salma and her children.
— My son is seven years old. He knows what a drone sounds like. He knows what to do when the shelling starts. But he doesn't know what a birthday is. He had never eaten a cake. He wasn't at school. Every day he asks, "Mom, are we going to survive today?" And I do not know what to say to him. We just want to survive. Just live like normal people. We're tired of being numbers in the news. We don't want to be heroes. We don't want to be victims. We just want to live," Salma Muhammad Hussein al-Natour shares her emotions.
Shaima Raed al-Hajj Ahmed lives in much poorer conditions. Her tent is a fabric fixed to a metal wall. The carpet is laid right on top of the sand, her children are sleeping on it — Shaima has three of them, she is pregnant with the fourth. One can hardly enter the tent of Shaima and her husband without bending down.
— We don't have anything for cooking, not even mattresses. In the morning, my husband went to the charity kitchen for lentils, one plate for five people — two spoons each," she comments.
"This is not life," Shaima says. "Sometimes I think it's better to die than to live like this."
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
