Palestinians in Gaza risk a harrowing journey to find food
Gazan children’s survival after a brain tumor surgery: A story of a Gazan mother and her son, Youssef,
Rihani says some of the tumors have damaged the organs of the children, leaving them in pain. Many patients in Gaza are starving, because of Israel’s strict controls on food and medicine.
“We couldn’t find food and wherever we went there were airstrikes,” says Safa Salha, who spent months going from damaged hospital to damaged hospital, seeking treatment for her 16-year-old son Youssef.
Youssef, a tall, quiet teenager who lets his mother do most of the talking, was in 10th grade before the war between Israel and Hamas started in October 2023 and shut down all the schools.
He had a brain surgery in Gaza last year where he had a brain tumor. The hospital could not do scans before the surgery, according to his mother. Surgeons removed as much of the tumor as they could and sent him home two days later because they needed the bed, his mother says.
“The hardest thing was the decision to do the surgery,” says Salha, a teacher and school activities organizer. “You don’t know whether the doctors were going to complete the surgery or not, you don’t know if there was any medicine available, and you don’t know if we were going to die during the surgery.”
The Jordanian Children’s Hospital: The Embarrassment of the Hamas and the Displacement of Palestine from the Kingdom
The control center of the Hamas was under the hospital. Israel released footage showing what it said were tunnels under the hospital complex to bolster its claim, but the heavily edited video could not be independently confirmed.
The UN says more than 50,000 children in Gaza have been killed or injured since the beginning of the war. Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 55,000 people, many of them women and children, have died. Almost 1200 Israelis and foreigners were killed in the first attack.
In March, aid agencies said more than 12,000 people need to be evacuated from Gaza, with at least 4,500 children among them.
In February, President Trump suggested a plan to take over Gaza, displacing Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt while turning the enclave into a U.S.-controlled zone featuring beach-front property. Many Palestinians in Gaza were already displaced from their homes after the creation of Israel in 1948.
Jordan sees the relocation plan as a threat to the kingdom and a death knell for hopes of a Palestinian state.
King Abdullah stated that Jordan is willing to take in 2000 child cancer patients and other very sick children as quickly as possible.
There have been difficulties imposed by the Israeli authorities that are blocking the way of making this happen, said Mohammad al-Momani.
Israel has interfered with exit visas needed for medical patients to be evacuated from Gaza, according to officials in Jordan. It’s a long-standing issue: Physicians for Human Rights in Israel has taken the Israeli government to court to try to force them to allow more patients out.
Health officials say delays in evacuations have meant diminished chances of survival for some of the sickest children, who elsewhere would receive immediate treatment.
She says that these patients require intensive care unit support, respiratory support and a lot of nutrition. “It makes the tumor very difficult to treat.”
One of the region’s leading cancer hospitals is the King Hussein Cancer Center. Rihani says it has 44 pediatric cancer beds and 24 beds for pediatric bone marrow transplants, which can be supplemented by other hospitals that also treat cancer. Some of the arrivals need treatment that is out-patient.
Rihani says no cancer patients treated in Jordan since the start of the Gaza war have been sent back to Gaza. It has been criticized by some for sending people back during the current conflict, since they have fully finished treatment for other illnesses.
The communications minister tells me that they are bringing them by batches. Once they finish treatment, they should go back to their homeland. We do not want to help the displacement of Palestinians.
There was no food or bread left after being bombarded by Israeli planes. Here, Astal says Ahmed has been dazzled by the abundance of shawarma — a sandwich of sliced chicken roasted on a spit.
The day they were evacuated from Gaza, the Astals had gathered with other patients and guardians near a bus at the Gaza European Hospital to drive to the border when Israel bombed the complex, according to patients and the World Health Organization. Gaza civil defense authorities say at least 28 people, including patients, were killed in the airstrikes.
Source: A cancer center in Jordan treats kids from Gaza, but only a few dozen have arrived
Shifting around a girl whose face is revealed by her smile: Suhair Zouroub, the first girl in Gaza diagnosed with leukemia
Leen al-Dabbas, a clinical psychologist at the cancer center, says many of the children are suffering from “masked depression” — not yet able to process what they’ve been through.
One girl, named Suhair Zouroub, is surrounded by her mother and brother as she waits for the start of her first round of medical treatment.
Two months ago, she was diagnosed with leukemia. There was no treatment for the seizures she suffered in Gaza. She explains how she huddling together with her family and hugging each other. Jude is old enough to understand the word tIYARA, Arabic for “plane”.
“I knew it was going to land near us but I couldn’t move,” says Astal. She couldn’t see the debris from the impact as she was thrown in the air.
Many people are able to obtain a packet of lentil, a jar of Nutella, or a bag of flour. Many return empty-handed and must try again the next day.
A Palestinian gantlet in Gaza risking to survive hunger: “Gazawa residents” say trampled in a desperate search for food
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — Each day, Palestinians in Gaza run a deadly gantlet in hopes of getting food. Israeli troops open barrages of gunfire towards crowds crossing military zones to reach the aid, and thieves wait to ambush those who succeed, they say. Palestinians say lawlessness is growing as they are forced into a competition to feed their families.
Al-Hobi said he was trampled in the scramble for boxes. He managed to grab a bag of rice, a packet of macaroni. He snagged flour — but much of it was ruined in the chaos.
Heba Jouda said she saw a group of men beat up a boy of 12 or 13 years old and take his food as she left one of the Rafah centers. She said that thieves attacked an elderly man, who hugged his sack, crying that his children had no food. They sliced his arm with a knife then took the sack.
He moved forward along with others on the main road. A shot rang out nearby and they ducked, he said. They found a young man on the ground, shot in the back. The others thought he was dead, but when Saqer felt his chest warm he knew he was alive. They carried him to a point where a car could pick him up.
Saqer said that you have to move fast. Some who came too late rob people leaving once supplies run out. The box was torn open and the contents were loaded into a sack.
Food boxes are placed on the ground in an area surrounded by berms. Thousands rush in to get what they can.
Source: Day after day, Palestinians in Gaza risk harrowing journey in desperate search for food
Palestinians in Gaza risk harrowing journey in desperate search for food: A report by Mohammed Saqer, a father of three
He said he and others inched their way forward under tank fire. He saw people with gunshot wounds. The man fell to the ground, and it looked as if he died from his injuries.
Everyone broke into a crazed run, he said. He saw people on the ground. A bleeding man reached out his hand for help. No one stopped.
Saqer was referring to the TV series in which contestants risk their lives to win a prize. He said that just raising your head could be a sign of death.
Mohammed Saqer, a father of three who risked the trip multiple times, said that when he went last week, tanks were firing over the heads of the crowds as drone announcements told everyone to move back.
Thousands of people must walk miles to reach the GHF centers, three of which are in the far south outside the city of Rafah. The Palestinian people said the danger starts when crowds enter the Israeli military zone.
Although Israel began allowing food into Gaza in the last month, the United Nations doesn’t think it’s enough to stop people from starving. GHF has four food distribution points inside of Israeli military zones which it distributes most of the supplies to. A trickle of aid goes to the U.N. and humanitarian groups.
GHF says no shots have been fired in or near its hubs. A person speaking on condition of anonymity said that incidents take place before sites open when aid seekers try to take a quick cut or move during prohibited times. They said GHF is trying to improve safety, in part by changing opening times to daylight hours.
Source: Day after day, Palestinians in Gaza risk harrowing journey in desperate search for food
The humanitarian affairs ministry of the U.N. is investigating Israel’s “failure to kill a civilian” in Gaza and how it’s trying to improve security
The military told The Associated Press its operations include systematic learning processes. It said it was looking into safety measures like fences and road signs.
In the past weeks, large groups of hungry people overwhelm most of the U.N.’s truck convoys and take away supplies. Israeli troops have opened fire to disperse crowds waiting for trucks near military zones, witnesses say — and on Tuesday, more than 50 people were killed, according to the ministry. The Israeli military is looking into the matter.
It’s already apocalyptic, so it’s not likely to get any worse. The U.N. humanitarian affairs office said it did get worse.
Source: Day after day, Palestinians in Gaza risk harrowing journey in desperate search for food
Jamil Atili walked out of a food center after the Israeli-backed contractor’s knife attack on his 14-year-old father
“This isn’t aid. It’s humiliation. It’s death,” said Jamil Atili, his face shining with sweat as he made his way back last week from a food center run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-backed private contractor. He had suffered a knife cut across his cheek amid the scramble for food and said a contractor guard pepper-sprayed him in the face. Still, he emerged with nothing for his 13 family members.
Patients in Gaza are starving, because of the restrictions on food and medicine imposed by Israel during the conflict between the Palestinian Authority and the Jewish state. Around 50,000 people have been killed since the conflict began on July 9. The UN has said more than 55,000 people, many of them women and children, have died.