By Abdallah Aljamal – Gaza

“I wished to get some food for my younger siblings and the children of my brother, but I returned to my family with broken ribs”. 

The Gaza famine is spreading in the besieged Gaza Strip, as Israeli forces continue to carry out massacres targeting Palestinians awaiting humanitarian aid. 

On Sunday, the tribal committees who were responsible for the distribution of aid announced in a statement that they will not keep fulfilling that task because Israel had targeted their members and families over the past days and weeks. 

The Palestine Chronicle spoke with Mahmoud Hamad, a young resident from Gaza who was injured while trying to retrieve an airdropped package of aid in the Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza. 

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Broken Ribs

On the morning of March 22, Mahmoud and his uncle Hani heard the sound of a plane that was flying very low, so they ran to get some aid. 

Some packages fell about 300 meters from their house, but they were not the only ones trying to get it. As the situation in Gaza gets more and more tough, everybody is keen on providing some food for their hungry children. 

“I felt severe pain in my chest. People were pushing very hard, in a desperate attempt to get the aid dropped by American and Jordanian forces from the air,” Mahmoud told The Palestine Chronicle. 

“The pain was so intense that I had to leave without even getting a small bag of rice or a can of tuna,” he said. 

Mahmoud’s uncle took him to the Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat and doctors told the young man had suffered from fractures in his chest. 

“I wished to get some food for my younger siblings and the children of my brother, but I returned to my family with broken ribs,” Mahmoud commented. 

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“Now I can’t move properly, and the doctors told me that I need several weeks to recover. Airdrops are dangerous and ineffective, and they are not suitable for our situation in Gaza,” he said.

“We want aid to reach us by land. We don’t want to be exposed to injuries, fractures, and the risk of death just to get a little bit of food, which is not even enough for a single meal.”

Stuck on the Roof 

Mahmoud is not the only one who thinks that the airdropped aid is not the right solution. 

Ibrahium Ayad is a resident of the city of Al-Amal, west of Nuseirat. 

“The occupation bombed most of the towers in the city during the first month of the war, so I evacuated with my wife, daughters, and son to my wife’s family’s house,” he told the Palestine Chronicle.

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“When the American and Jordanian forces dropped aid a few days ago, one of the parachutes landed on the roof of my wife’s family’s house. It got stuck in our neighbor’s house, which is about two floors higher than ours, and the box fell onto our roof. If the parachute hadn’t gotten caught in our neighbor’s house, my daughters would have been injured by the falling box,” Ayad said.

“People rushed towards my uncle’s house to get the aid that landed on the roof. Everyone wanted to storm the house and get food from the parachute, which was a very small quantity and not enough for dozens of families anyway”.

“The airdropped aid is only suitable for military shows, not for relieving a people deliberately killed by the occupation through bombing and starvation,” Ayad continued.

Abu Khalil Wawai is Ayad’s neighbor. He is relieved that the aid did not fall on his roof, which is made of zinc and asbestos panels.

“If the aid had fallen on it, it would have broken and exposed us to danger,” Wawai said, blaming the international community for all of this. 

“The international community must pressure the occupation to allow aid to enter through the Gaza crossings. Airdropping aid is very dangerous and does not help with the increasing hunger in the Strip,” he stated.

“We are fasting Ramadan without eating suhoor, and every day we struggle to find a meal to break our fast. There is no work in Gaza, no safety, and there is bombing everywhere. Every day, we bury dozens of martyrs. We don’t know if we will die from occupation missiles, starvation, or the danger of airdropped aid.”

(The Palestine Chronicle)