By Moussa Al Wazir | Contributing Writer

As the Israeli War on the Gaza Strip continues and approaches its 115th day, more than 1.5 million Palestinians, mainly consisting of women and children, find themselves displaced from their homes in northern and central Gaza to the South of the strip near the Egyptian border. The displacement occurred after the Israeli armed forces announced the launch of a full military operation against Hamas’ infrastructure in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, after the  Brigade of Izz-Aldin-AlQasam (Hamas’s armed wing) and other armed resistance groups surprisingly entered multiple Israeli settlements neighboring Gaza in an attempt to free some of the occupied lands and impose pressure on the Israeli government.  

The mass displacement and full siege and attack on the Gaza Strip resulted in the dramatic collapse of all aspects of life for Gazans where simple day-to-day needs such as food, drinking water, and electricity are becoming scarce, rendering them hard to find or significantly expensive. According to reports by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) on Gaza, approximately 90% of the population faces “crisis levels of food insecurity”, meaning that people aren’t meeting their daily food needs. This scarcity of resources has forced Gazans to find and create new ways to meet their nutritional and health needs. 

On the 22nd of January 2024, the only mill producing bread for the refugees in the south of Gaza was reported to have run out of its flour stock and started grounding animal feed such as barley and corn flour to produce bread for civilians.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza worsens by the day, even by the hour. Multiple reports point that Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war, deliberately denying and delaying the entrance of food aid to Gazans. 

Sources:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/18/israel-starvation-used-weapon-war-gaza 

https://www.bbc.com/arabic/tv-and-radio-68061525#:~:text=%D9%84%D8%AC%D8%A3%20%D8%B9%D8%AF%D8%AF%20%D9%85%D9%86%20%D8%B3%D9%83%D8%A7%D9%86%20%D8%BA%D8%B2%D8%A9,%D8%B4%D8%B9%D9%8A%D8%B1%20%D9%88%D8%B0%D8%B1%D8%A9%20%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%AE%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%87%D8%A7%20%D9%83%D8%BA%D8%B0%D8%A7%D8%A1%20%D9%84%D9%84%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%B2%D8%AD%D9%8A%D9%86.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/8TNg44PuvHksMLpb/?mibextid=KsPBc6

https://www.alarab.co.uk/علف-الحيوانات-دقيق-للخبز-في-غزة?amp