My brother-in-law, Samer, was killed in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, on April 27, when his vegetable stall was bombed. He lacked weapons. He lacked political charisma. In a place where food has become more expensive than gold, he was a quiet man who was trying to make a living feeding his children.
By profession, Samer wasn’t a vendor. He was an advocate for the oppressed’s rights. However, he was forced to make a change of course by the war.
He was able to purchase vegetables from neighborhood wholesalers during the ceasefire. Supply levels dramatically decreased after the war resumed and the crossings into Gaza abruptly stopped, but he still maintained a small vegetable stock. Even as buyers became scarce as a result of the high prices, he kept selling day and night. He frequently made a generous effort to give us free vegetables, but I never did.
I froze when I learned about Samer’s murder. My husband and I tried to keep the news from them, but I was able to tell the truth through tears. Although he appeared to want to scream, his scream continued to linger inside his throat. Perhaps his burdened soul couldn’t bear the expression of grief because of something.
Samer left a devastated family and three young children behind. No one anticipated his demise. It shocked me. Even in the most difficult circumstances, he was a good and sincere young man who was always upbeat, loving, and full of laughter.
In front of his vegetable market, he still has a loving voice in my memory.
Samer is one of the many food sellers who have died as a result of this genocide. Anyone who works in the food industry has been targeted. As if they were selling food, they were bombed, as if fruit and vegetable vendors, grocers, bakers, shop owners, and community kitchen workers. As if the food they were supplying was a threat, bunkeries, stores, farms, and warehouses have been destroyed.
One of the busiest streets in Gaza City’s Remal neighborhood, al-Wahda Street, was bombed ten days after Samer’s death. At least 33 people have died.
The Jabaliya bakery’s immediate vicinity was bombed two weeks prior to Samer’s martyrdom. A food distribution center in Khan Younis was targeted days earlier. Since the start of the war, more than 39 food and distribution centers and 29 community kitchens have been targeted, according to the Gaza-based government media office.
By now, it is obvious that Israel is not only preventing food from entering Gaza through its deliberate starvation campaign. Every component of the food supply chain is being destroyed as well.
All that is currently available to purchase are scraps because of the frequent targeting of vendors and markets for those whose incomes allow for food purchases. In Gaza, death has become more simple than life.
The worst victims of starvation are babies and young children. At least 26 Palestinians, including nine children, died in Gaza in less than a 24-hour period as a result of starvation and lack of medical care, according to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor on May 21.
Since the aid embargo started in early March, the Gaza-based Ministry of Health announced on May 5 that at least 57 children had died as a result of malnutrition.
I frequently skip days without eating to give my kids whatever little food they have leftovers. My husband usually returns with nothing but scraps after spending the entire day looking for something to quench our hunger. If we’re lucky, we divide our children’s leftovers between two pieces of bread.
Even more intolerable is the hardship that Samer’s wife must endure. She tries to keep her tears a secret from her children, who keep asking when their father will leave the market. She had to become a father overnight as a result of her long lines in front of neighborhood restaurants in search of some food.
She frequently returns empty-handed, yelling, “When Dad comes back, he’ll bring us food,” to comfort her children. Her children sleep hungry and dreaming of a meal to fill their stomachs, which their late father never will provide.
Hamas claims that Israel is preventing Gaza from receiving aid, but Israel has made that claim. The claim has been refuted by the Western media, who are blatantly involved in the distortion of the truth.
Yet it is obvious that Israel is also pursuing Gaza’s entire population. In accordance with international law, it deliberately obstructs the flow of humanitarian aid by using starvation as a weapon of war against civilians.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently demanded that all Palestinians be barred from Gaza in exchange for a truce in order to put an end to the conflict.
His choice to pass food through the crossings is nothing more than a PR stunt. To reassure the world that we are not starving, enough flour was brought in to allow the media to distribute images of bread at a bakery.
These images, however, do not accurately represent what we encounter on the ground. The majority of my family’s bread has not been delivered to me, just like my family has. Where available, flouri continues to cost $450 per bag.
Aid organizations claim 119 aid trucks have entered since Monday, compared to 388 that Israel has claimed. Because the Israeli army continues to target anyone attempting to secure the distribution of aid, an undetermined number of these have been looted.
When compared to the needs of the world’s starving population, this minuscule amount of aid Israel is providing is insignificant. Every day, at least 500 trucks are needed to carry the bare minimum.
Meanwhile, some Western governments have threatened sanctions and used symbolic measures to allegedly compel Israel to stop starving us. Why was it necessary to wait until our children were starving before doing this? Why do they only threaten, disregarding the law, and act accordingly?
Our top wish for today is to discover a loaf of bread. In this devastating famine, which has destroyed our lives and destroyed our planet, our only concern is how to continue to survive. No one in our lives is now in good health. We’ve turned into corpses. Even though our bodies are dead, our hearts still tingle with hope as we yearn for the miraculous day that this nightmare ends.
Who will, however, support us? Who has our hearts broken yet, and how is that?
And the most crucial question of all is: When will the world stop blinding us to our slow, brutal hunger?
