The perilous journey for Palestinians to get food in Gaza
NEAR THE NETZARIM CORRIDOR, Gaza Strip —  What does it take to get food today in Gaza? It involves a perilous journey that I took myself.
I faced Israeli military fire, private U.S. contractors pointing laser beams at my forehead, crowds with knives fighting for rations, and masked thieves — to get food from a group supported by the U.S. and Israel called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF.
Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images
Every day since the group began offering food on May 26, thousands of hungry Palestinians seeking food at these sites have been wounded and hundreds have been killed by Israeli military fire, according to Gaza health officials and international medical teams in Gaza. Many others have returned empty-handed after crowds grabbed all the food.
This is the story of what I witnessed from inside what GHF calls a “Secure Distribution Site.”
The United Nations calls the food program a “death trap.”
Why I took the risk to get food from the distribution site
I have lost a third of my body weight after nearly 21 months of war in Gaza.
Months of an Israeli ban on food entering Gaza, and the current strict controls on food distribution, have fueled widespread hunger. Gaza health officials have reported scores of children who died of malnutrition.
People are pale and weak. They walk on the street supporting themselves by grabbing onto walls and fences, or they walk together in groups to support each other. Women and children faint in the street.
Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images
In recent months, I have eaten one small meal a day, rationing my own stock. Three weeks ago, I ran out of the basics — flour, lentils, cooking oil.
Street vendors sell items with skyrocketing prices I can no longer afford. Two pounds of potatoes cost around $100. I began buying watermelon peels and spoiled potatoes to pickle them.
But hunger is a little bit of an addiction. Once it’s controlling your own mind, you cannot think straight. Once you feel that your stomach, your brain, your body, are craving something, you will not be afraid of anything. You will do anything to get food.
That’s why on Monday evening, June 23, my cousin and I left Gaza City and walked south along the coast for hours to risk trying to get food at a GHF site in central Gaza.
Packing empty sacks and knives for the journey
We packed a small backpack with water, bandages and a first aid kit. Others tuck an empty sack under their pants’ belt on one hip, and on the other, a knife, to protect themselves from looters and bandits, as hunger spreads lawlessness throughout Gaza.
Around midnight, large crowds began to gather along a wide road leading to the food site, waiting for some kind of sign that it is open. To reach the food site from that road, you have to pass through a military area near the Netzarim corridor, an Israeli military zone that during most times is a no-go zone for Palestinians. Crossing through the military zone before the food site is open draws Israeli military fire.
GHF doesn’t have fixed opening hours. It opens and closes the site often within minutes. Those who get there first get to grab the most food before it quickly runs out. Many edge to the front of the crowd before the site opens, despite the risk of Israeli soldiers perceiving them as a threat.
Crowds began running down the road toward the site, as cars and motorcycles raced each other. I saw people get crushed underneath cars.
The crowd dodged bullets
At 2 a.m. the gunfire stopped. We took it as a sign that the site had opened. I ran with the crowds toward the food distribution site, stepping over bodies.
In a statement, the Israeli military said people had gathered adjacent to Israeli IDF troops. “Reports of injured individuals as a result of IDF fire in the area were received. The details are under review,” it said.
A mother guards her food with a knife in each hand
The food site was finally open.
I watched hundreds of people tear down a fence surrounding the site, trampling over it to reach boxes of food sitting on wooden pallets. I grabbed my cellphone and started to document the scene.
Thousands of people — a human blender — were swirling around the food boxes, fighting each other to take as much food as possible.
Law and order had totally vanished. It was the law of the jungle.
Getting food in Gaza didn’t used to be a free-for-all
Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images
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