Securing our basic needs in Gaza

Today is the 21st of November and it’s Day 46 of the war. Since it started we have heard different types of weapons and bombs once, twice, thrice, four, five, six, ten, eleven or one hundred times a day. On some days we only hear one or two types of weapons but these have a much stronger impact than the other types which we hear more often. 

In spite of this people continue to live their daily lives in Gaza. They wake up hearing the sound of bombs but they also wake up with the same thoughts that any normal person would have on their mind – things like ‘How are we going to get milk for our babies? How are we going to cook for our children? How are we going to make sure they have at least one proper meal today?’ If they manage to secure their basic needs then there is a sense of relief. This is what I want to discuss in my blog today. 

Empty shelves in the supermarket in Rafah

Even before discussing how we get our basic services I want to explain what I mean by basic services or basic needs. I’m talking about life-saving needs or services – I’m not speaking about education – education is not life-saving. I’m referring to health services, food and water as the basics for people. In our modern life communication is also one of the basic needs, which means availability of lap tops and mobiles and being able to charge them. The ability to communicate with our friends and relatives outside is also important.

Like I said before the majority of people or civilians (who are now being killed) want their daily life to go on normally and to be able to provide for their children, because like any human on earth we Palestinians care about our children. And so in spite of not knowing where the bombs will be hitting on any given day, people go to the market on a daily basis – I go to the market myself. I don’t know if the market will be bombed, just because someone who is being targeted might be passing by. Today the market was terrifying – there were so many people who had been displaced from other parts of Gaza and there were so many people in the streets trying to buy food and secure their basic needs. It’s important to note that the word basic is different from one person to another - which is also a message that should be sent to the international community because what ‘basic needs’ means to one person is not necessarily what it means to someone else. 

Actually, I’ve started to see that amongst the aid being distributed. There is aid that is being given to the schools, like blankets and canned food and aid to the people who are living and hosted in families. Our diet has changed a lot. I cannot survive on just having bread and zaatar with a little tomato – that is not a life and I also don’t want a big table full of food in this situation. Mentally I would not be able to eat from a big table knowing that there are other people literally starving to death living in tents. 

So back to the market. When I saw the crowds today I was so afraid because I started thinking “What if someone they are targeting happened to walk here just by chance? I mean they can’t be under the ground all the time.” I started walking from home to the market until I found a taxi because my car was bombed during the first three days of the war. The front part of my car was bombed so I was able to travel with it to Rafah alhamdulilah but I don’t drive around within Rafah because I don’t feel safe to. So I go to the market to buy things like cucumber, tomato and something light for lunch. We used to have a good amount of chicken in Rafah but now that so many people have had to move here we are facing shortages and we don’t have that anymore. We also found out that there’s a chicken farm that was bombed a few days ago – the day after that I’ve never seen chicken in the market. 

Also one of the basic needs that I have and I don’t have in the market and I want to shop for is a power bank, to enable me to charge my mobile whenever possible to do that. Also coffee – it might make you laugh but over here this is not a luxury item, it’s a necessity. And it’s unavailable in the market. Basic food items like oil for cooking, beans and canned food are usually available. But the big problem is the lack of bread. As I’ve mentioned before in order to get bread a lot of people go to queue at 4.30am and they try to get 10 loaves of bread at that time because their families are so large. Today they’re only allowing 5 loaves per family and that’s not enough. 

The fridges don't work in the supermarkets 
because of the lack of electricity

I also find it difficult to provide for my pets because there isn’t even enough food for human beings in the market so how would you provide dry or soft food for the pets – that’s also a difficult mission.

The aid being distributed is different for those staying in a school and those being hosted for a family. For those not staying at a school we get one bottle of water a day for two people, we get one can of tuna for two people and that’s considered the food for the day – of course we don’t get given bread. 

Today UNRWA started distributing flour for houses. Imagine a pack of flour used to cost 50 shekels but it now costs 200 shekels which is four times the price. A pack of eggs used to cost 14 shekels and now it’s around 50 shekels. Prices have gone up so much – a small pack of triangle cheese used to cost 2 or 3 shekels but now it costs 5 or 6 shekels.

People here are already poor and unemployed – this is a policy to make people starve. Sometimes I go to the shop and I don’t find the things I need. A child’s basic needs would be – flour, bread with some cheese in it, or a cooked meal like spaghetti or rice and chicken. That’s something that a child would need to grow.

We don’t have any greens like lettuce or parsley – those are not distributed as aid. For what you used to get for 1 shekel now you get for 5 shekels. In spite of the high prices you don’t find many items in the market. People are having to sell their gold or whatever they can to be able to buy bread. 

Today I was in a taxi with two other people – the driver and the guy sitting next to me. The smell of the gas was terrible because people are using cooking oil to run cars. We are really in a contaminated place – today was the first time I felt like I’m suffocating in the market and it wasn’t because of the crowds, it was because of the burning smell. Cooking oil is also being used for the hospitals – if anyone needs an operation inside a hospital they have to bring their own source of energy with them because hospitals have no fuel available to them.  

When I was in the taxi the driver said to the other passenger, “I didn’t have water available in the house and so I had to buy a bottle for 3 shekels.” This is quite expensive for someone in Gaza. The passenger then said, “Well we don’t even have bread.” The driver replied, “OK but we will have it now since UNRWA is distributing flour.” The passenger said “Yes but are they going to distribute because there’s no yeast in the market.” The driver then said, “OK and what if we got yeast, are we going to have the electricity to bake the bread?”

The passenger replied, “If we don’t have electricity then we have coal, if we don’t have coal then we have wood and if don’t have wood then we’ll just burn ourselves.” They were saying it like that, in a sarcastic manner – they were laughing about it but it was one of those situations when you’re laughing about something that’s so serious that it actually makes you cry in the first place.

So hospitals which are supposed to be a clean place for patients ask for people to bring their cooking oil in order to have the energy for their patients to have operations, but that makes the air smell terrible. I hear so many stories from the hospitals – basic needs include pain killers and anesthesia – we don’t even have this. The other day I heard a doctor on the radio crying because he was saying that he had to amputate the limbs of a girl without any kind of pain killer and she was feeling everything. 

Going to the market is risky. When you leave your home or even when you stay in your home in Gaza you are risking your life. As for the communications that we use here – what people see in the media is that we have no internet, no mobiles, nothing – and that’s true to a limit. Because there are times when we know we can call each other – say I want to make sure that a friend is fine, I have to call her between 6.30 and 7.30 am because this is the average time the mobiles are working. In addition, we can get another internet source  rather than what we have through Jawwal – I don’t know the name of the company but we buy one card for one day and it feeds the data into the Jawwal and it costs us around 1 shekel a day . The internet connection is terrible and it’s not available 24/7. It’s supposed to continue for 30 hours but we get less than 20 or 18 hours by using that internet connection.

But at least we find a way to communicate. We also have the e-sim. Some of my friends outside offered to provide me with e-sim which also makes my life a bit easier because when I don’t have Jawwal or the connection through buying that card we can use the e-sim but not all the time of course. We have weak internet connection – we cannot see youtube, Instagram etc – we are limited to WhatsApp and it doesn’t work all the time. 

It doesn’t work to receive pictures – I don’t see pictures or videos but I know I can receive information and speak with people. It also means that for someone job-hunting you can’t see job advertisements and how to apply etc. 

Sometimes we go days without hearing from people and we assume that they have died. I had a friend who I was almost certain had died because I hadn’t heard from her in such a long time. But eventually she called me and that gave me so much relief. 

I have another friend who died a few weeks ago – she was a very close friend and we used to spend long hours together because we were colleagues. It became clear to me that I was the last person she sent a message to the day before she was killed. We do get to know news here and there – we are not 100% cut off from the world but we are also at about 50% of the normal level of communication the rest of the world has.