There are explosions audible in the cramped, humid room where Azmi Keshawi shelters with his family in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis. The bombardments keep coming closer, he says, and they’re wreaking death and destruction. Their sense of desperation has grown 11 days into the Israel-Hamas war. Food is running out and Israel has so far stopped humanitarian attempts to bring it in.
The Associated Press has the story:
Gaza under Israeli siege: Bread lines, yellow water & nonstop explosions
Newslooks- KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP)
There are explosions audible in the cramped, humid room where Azmi Keshawi shelters with his family in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis. The bombardments keep coming closer, he says, and they’re wreaking death and destruction.
Keshawi, his wife, two sons, two daughters and tiny grandchildren are trying to survive inside.
Their sense of desperation has grown 11 days into the Israel-Hamas war. Food is running out and Israel has so far stopped humanitarian attempts to bring it in.
The family hasn’t showered in days since Israel cut off Gaza’s water and fuel supplies. They get drinking water from the U.N. school, where workers hand out jerrycans of water from Gaza’s subterranean aquifer to desperate families. It tastes salty. The desalination stations stopped working when the fuel ran out.
Keshawi boils the water and hopes for the best.
“How the hell did the entire world just watch and let Israel turn off the water?” said Keshawi, 59, a U.S.-educated researcher at the International Crisis Group, his voice rising with anger.
That the world is watching, he says, saddens him the most.
Sometimes there are too many airstrikes to forage for food. But his family’s stocks are dwindling, so he tries to get bread when he can. On Thursday, the line for one loaf was chaotic and took five hours. Several bakeries have been bombed. Others have closed because they don’t have enough water or power. Authorities are still working out the logistics for a delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza from Egypt.
Keshawi has money to buy food for his grandchildren. But there’s hardly anything to buy. The children often eat stale bread and drink powdered milk. A few Palestinians who own chicken farms and have gas stoves run take-out kitchens from their homes, asking customers to wait for hours to get a meager plate of rice and chicken. Keshawi wishes he didn’t see the water they used — liquid with a disconcerting yellow hue, from a donkey cart. He didn’t tell his wife.
“It’s not the time to be picky,” he said from his friend’s house where he sought refuge after heeding an Israeli military evacuation order for Gaza City. “We don’t know if anything will be available tomorrow.”
The toilet in the house is nearly full to the brim with urine. What water they can spare to wash the dishes they then use to flush waste down the toilet. Without enough food or water, they don’t use the bathroom much.
The nights are the hardest, he said. When airstrikes crash nearby and explosions light up the sky, the adults muster what little resolve they have to soothe the children.
“Boom!” they yell and cheer when the bombs thunder. The babies laugh.
But older kids are terrified. They see the news and know that the airstrikes have crushed thousands of homes and killed over 3,000 Palestinians in Gaza so far, including dozens of people a mere kilometer (half mile) from the house they thought would offer safety.
Keshawi said he tries to put on a brave face. But often, he said, he can’t stop weeping.
“It’s really killing me,” he said. “It really breaks my heart.”
UN CHIEF URGES AID ACCESS FOR GAZA AND CALLS FOR CEASE-FIRE
CAIRO — United Nations Secretary General António Guterres is urging Hamas and Israel to agree to a humanitarian cease-fire and for Palestinians in Gaza to be allowed access to fuel, food, water and medicine.
“Civilians in Gaza need core services and supplies and for that we need rapid and immediate humanitarian access, we need water, food and medicine now. We need it at scale, and we need it to be sustained,” António Guterres said.
Speaking during a news conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry in Cairo, Guterres also urged Hamas to release the hostages captured during their Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel.
INDIA’S PM PROMISES AID FOR PALESTINIAN PEOPLE
NEW DELHI — India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and conveyed his condolences for the loss of civilian lives at the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza.
“We will continue to send humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people,” Modi said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
He said he “reiterated India’s long-standing principled position on the Israel-Palestine issue.” At a briefing earlier, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said India favors negotiations on a two-state solution, which allows for an independent Palestinian state.
Modi told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week that “the people of India stand in solidarity with Israel in this difficult hour.”
India leaned heavily in favor of the Palestinians during the Cold War, but its ties to Israel have grown since 1992 when the two countries established diplomatic relations. In 2017, Modi became the first prime minister to visit Israel.
HUMANITARIAN AGENCIES PREPARE TO COORDINATE FLOW OF SUPPLIES TO GAZA
ZUWAIDA, Gaza Strip — Oxfam is working with other humanitarian agencies to provide a quick response when supplies begin flowing into Gaza.
Najla Shawa, a spokesman for Oxfam in Gaza, said they’re waiting for a cease-fire to be able to provide assistance to people who have had electricity, food and fuel supplies cut off.
“This is going to be a big challenge because there’s a lot to be done and we still don’t have enough information about what’s going to come in tomorrow,” Shawa said. Authorities have said the Egypt-Gaza border crossing in Rafah could open as soon as Friday.
She said any response will take longer than usual because so many aid workers have been displaced from their homes.
“The situation is extremely challenging,” she said.
UN TO INSPECT AID SHIPMENTS INTO GAZA UNDER ISRAEL-EGYPT DEAL
CAIRO — A U.N. flag will be raised at the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza to protect against Israeli airstrikes under a U.N.-brokered deal between Israel and Egypt to allow aid into the Palestinian territory.
An Egyptian official and a European diplomat said observers from the U.N. will also inspect trucks carrying aid before they cross.
They said the U.N will oversee the aid, along with the Egyptian and Palestinian Red Crescent societies, to ensure it is given to civilians and not used by Palestinian militants.
The Egyptian official said they are still negotiating with Israel over allowing fuel into Gaza, where a shortage has forced the closure of multiple hospitals.
The official and the diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
