Nesrien Quadaih and her four children have sought refuge in a UN school in the town of Khan Younis, in the south of the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces ordered her entire village, Khuzaa, east of Khan Younis to evacuate. – We didn’t manage to take anything with us. They said we had to leave the place immediately. We ran barefoot through the streets with the children in our arms, she says. The school is overcrowded. Nesrien says that a classroom houses up to 80 people. Her family has found shelter in a tent in the school yard. Everything has become more difficult; to get bread, to be able to go to the toilet, to wash oneself and the children. The most difficult thing is finding drinking water, says Nesrien. OVERCROWDED: Nesrien Quadaih and her four children have sought refuge in a UN school in the town of Khan Younis. Photo: private Children cry from thirst The children say they are thirsty, but Nesrien has no clean water to give them. – I have to give my two-year-old child dirty water, she explains in despair. To find drinking water, they have to travel far, often on foot. Even after hours in line, they only manage to fill half of a jerry can. Before, five liters of water cost one Israeli shekel, just under NOK 3. Now the price has doubled. Nesrien often sees that the “clean” water is mixed with dirty. – First my children cry because they are thirsty, then because they have a stomach ache, she says. There is also hardly any water for bathing and washing. The queues to use the toilets at school are long, and when it is finally her turn, there is rarely any water to flush with. – I see the disaster on the pale faces around me. We haven’t showered in a long time. It is painful to see that this is our reality now. Two municipal water trucks are the entire water supply for the 600,000 inhabitants of Gaza City. Photo: Gaza municipality Blocked the water flow Previously, Gaza bought 25 percent of its water from the Israeli water company Mekorot. After Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October, the water mains were turned off. The water transport stopped completely, following orders from Energy Minister Israel Katz. – I have asked for a complete stop to Israel’s water supply to Gaza, he said after the Hamas attack. The rest of the water is either desalinated water from the sea or it comes from wells. Israel’s blockade of Gaza means that fuel cannot enter. – Without fuel, we cannot create electricity. Without electricity, we are unable to pump water into the pipes, or to desalinate the seawater, explains Mohammed al-Shakra. He works as head of international cooperation in the Gaza City Council. Gaza City, like the rest of the area, is ruled by Hamas. Vicious circle: – Without fuel, we cannot create electricity. Without electricity, we are not able to pump water into the pipes or desalinate the seawater, explains Mohammed al-Shakra in Gaza City. Photo: Gaza Municipality news has tried to get a statement from the Israeli embassy in Oslo about the water conditions in Gaza. The embassy has not responded to the questions. The fight for a piece of bread The food crisis is at its worst. Dinners consist of canned goods. Nesrien says that the bread queue is the family’s biggest trial. Before sunrise, when the clock strikes four, people take to the streets hoping to get a place in the bread line. The endless queue winds from one end of the street to the other. – People are frustrated. There is pushing and shoving. Women push men, and men push women, says Nesrien. The waiting time can be up to 5–6 hours. When the bread is finally in her hands, one does not want to share it. – You hug the bag of bread close to you as if it were your own child, says Nesrien. In order for the bread to last as long as possible, she shares it over five days, with one piece for the whole family a day. – I dip the piece of bread in lentil soup, so that everyone gets a taste, she says. EVERYDAY: Nesrien Quadaih’s children Zein and Ahmed help each other at the UN school in Khan Younis. Photo: private Steal flour from the UN Director of Communications at the UN organization for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, Juliette Touma, says that people are desperate. – People are very anxious. Several thousand entered one of UNRWA’s largest warehouses and supplied themselves with wheat flour and hygiene products, she says. BREAK IN: – People are anxious. Several thousand entered one of UNRWA’s largest warehouses and supplied themselves with wheat flour and hygiene products, says Juliette Touma in UNRWA Photo: Juliette Touma / UN This happened last Saturday, at a time when Gaza was in total darkness. Both telephone and internet coverage were down. The UN has worked in the region for over 70 years. Touma believes that the conditions in Gaza are currently the most challenging they have encountered. Their efforts are limited, not only because of a lack of supplies to give out, but also because UN staff themselves are displaced and threatened. So far, 88 UN workers have been killed in Gaza, the organization said on Monday. FOOD CRISIS: Wheat flour is in short supply. Dinners consist of canned goods. Nesrien says that the bread queue is the family’s biggest trial. Photo: MOHAMMED ABED / AFP Dreaming of baking bread When news talks to mother of four Nesrien Quadaih, she is affected by the situation at the UN school where she has sought refuge. Several UN schools, which house displaced families, have been subjected to bombings and rocket attacks. Most recently, the UN school in Jabalia, in the north of the Gaza Strip, was attacked. Even in these troubled times, Nesrien clings to the hope that her school in Khan Younis will be spared, and that she and her family will come through this safely. – What is the first thing you want to do when the war is over? – I want to rebuild our house. I want to gather the children around me. I want to shower them with clean water and bake bread in the kitchen, says Nesrien.
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Mother in the Gaza Strip has to give dirty water to her children – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
