Rania Sakallah is holding onto comfortable recollections. Shortly earlier than the battle began, she and her household loved a day trip collectively at Sheikh Ijlin seashore within the south of Gaza Metropolis.
They stopped on the Tropical Restaurant to eat hen pizza. Her twin son and daughter have been about to embark on their last yr of research at Al-Azhar College. There was loads to sit up for.
Now they face the bleakest of begins to 2024. Huddled in a freezing room within the southern border city of Rafah with different relations – 11 folks in whole – the longer term resembles a gaping void and the Gaza Metropolis residence Rania and her husband Hazem had constructed collectively presumably diminished to rubble.
“I don’t sleep all night time,” says Rania. “I lie awake all night time pondering: What are we going to do? The place are we going to go?”
Rania and Hazem, an accountant with the Palestinian Authority, determined to flee Gaza Metropolis on October 13, forsaking their four-bedroom residence. “As a result of we have been so scared, we didn’t take a lot,” says Rania. Carrying a number of baggage with garments and tinned meals, they walked the 33km (20 miles) to Khan Younis, taking turns to push Rania’s 75-year-old mom, who had lately suffered a stroke, in her wheelchair.
For about 50 days, they stayed in Khan Younis, sleeping on the ground of Rania’s brother’s store as Israel launched among the most intense air assaults of the whole battle on the Israeli-declared “protected zone” in early December.
Chased by bombs, they hit the street once more, joined by the households of Rania’s brother and sister, scrambling for lodging in Rafah, simply because the heavy winter rains started.
Rania and her household are removed from alone. In response to the United Nations, half of Gaza’s inhabitants of two.2 million is now crammed into colleges, public buildings and makeshift camps in Rafah and close by al-Mawasi. Essentially the most determined are within the streets.
Though southern Gaza is meant to be the enclave’s final refuge, Israel continues to pound the world. With assist vans solely in a position to usher in scant provides, illness and excessive deprivation are rife, says Rania.
Speaking on the cellphone to Al Jazeera, Rania described the battle for survival in Rafah. “Life has drained us out. It has change into unimaginable,” she says. “It’s not simply me. It’s like one million Palestinians identical to me. And a few of them are in an excellent worse scenario.”
Meals, water and gas
Greater than half one million folks in Gaza have run out of meals and are actually at instant threat of starvation, UN companies mentioned final week. Deliveries of meals, water and medication have been stopped at first of the battle, with November’s pause in combating permitting extra assist to enter by way of Rafah – nonetheless, solely 10 p.c of meals wants are being met proper now.
In Rafah, life revolves round getting sufficient meals and water to outlive one other day. “Once we wish to make bread, the primary problem is discovering the flour,” says Rania. Even that primary ingredient has change into scarce, with relations queueing for hours at a faculty run by UNRWA (United Nations Reduction and Works Company), which is sheltering hundreds and distributing some meals assist. Generally folks depart empty-handed.
It’s nonetheless doable to purchase meals, she says. However with provides operating low, costs of fundamentals like fava beans, chickpeas and cheese have skyrocketed, rendering them inaccessible for most individuals. As soon as meals has been secured, family members should seek for firewood outdoors, as gas and gasoline are actually unimaginable to pay money for. Rania makes use of an previous oil drum as a range to prepare dinner.
Water solely comes on faucet as soon as per week, on Fridays, however is typically too soiled even to bathe, not to mention drink. The combination of poor diet and soiled water is making folks in poor health, sparking outbreaks of diarrhoea, gastroenteritis and pores and skin infections.
![Palestinian children collect food at a donation point provided by a charity group in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah.](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/347663X-highres-1703454915.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513)
Healthcare
Rania doesn’t depart the home with no face masks. Because the climate will get colder, catching flu or respiratory infections can imply dying. Lots of these sheltering on the UNRWA faculty the place she queues for meals are in poor health, she says.
There’s a room within the faculty providing medical help however it’s unable to offer any remedy past paracetamol. “You’re not going to get assist in case you go there,” she says.
However going to the hospital is not an option both. Proper now, Rafah’s Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital and the Kuwaiti Hospital are working past capability on barely any medical provides. Gas provides wanted for turbines, minimize off firstly of the battle, are nonetheless closely restricted.
Overcrowding and poor sanitary circumstances have spawned an entire new set of well being hazards. On common, 160 folks sheltering in UNRWA colleges share a single bathroom and there’s one bathe unit for each 700 folks, based on UN figures.
Medical doctors report that many are contaminated with parasites. Infectious dysentery, inflicting vomiting and diarrhoea, is now widespread. Instances of contagious diseases like chickenpox, measles and viral meningitis are additionally rising quick.
“I’m making an attempt for there to not be sickness in my household,” says Rania. “We’re pondering we may very well be shedding one among our family members at any second and we’re scared.”
Communications
With no electrical energy, Rania’s cellphone name with Al Jazeera required cautious preparation, involving a one-hour stroll to the closest UNRWA faculty to cost her cellphone. As soon as a connection was established, it repeatedly threatened to drop.
That is nothing uncommon lately – generally it takes Rania dozens of makes an attempt to achieve her ailing mom and father, who joined the household in Deir el-Balah when she left for Rafah, Rania tells Al Jazeera.
Proper now, the web is normally solely obtainable for 10 minutes at a time. Rania’s youngsters, Rana and Mohammed, each 22 years previous, really feel like their desires have been shattered, their world now diminished to a single room in a battle zone, with no technique of speaking correctly with the skin world.
Rana was about to qualify as a dentist, whereas Mohammed was finding out software program engineering.
“I inform them to seek out different locations the place they’ll end outdoors Gaza however they ask how they’ll do that. There’s not even any web for them to search for universities,” Rania says. In any case, she wonders if they might be accepted wherever with no certificates.
Gaza has endured repeated cellphone and web blackouts resulting from strikes on telecommunications infrastructure, deliberate shutdowns and energy cuts because the battle began on October 7.
Underneath blockade for the previous 16 years, the enclave has typically been in contrast with an open-air jail, even earlier than the battle.
![A boy walks with sacks of food supplies through a yard at a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/343J4MZ-highres-1700139461.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513)
On the cusp of the New 12 months, Rania, Hazem and the twins are praying for peace. Proper now, the one certainty Rania has is that she won’t depart Gaza — at a time many Israeli politicians have advised that the folks of Gaza transfer into Egypt’s Sinai desert. Egypt has rejected the proposal.
Rania’s sister, Aya, additionally sharing the room in Rafah, caught it out for so long as she might in Gaza Metropolis, finally compelled to go away together with her husband and their son, all holding white flags and their identification papers aloft so they might not be shot as they walked south. One uncle who stayed behind was killed by the bombs.
Rania doesn’t even know if the household residence, together with her beloved backyard filled with lemon, mango and guava timber, remains to be standing. However, she says, she is ready to dwell in a tent amid the rubble of the destroyed metropolis. “Daily my children ask me when we’re going to return to Gaza Metropolis,” she says. “Why would we go to Sinai? Sinai is a desert.”
“If Gaza too is a desert, I’d reasonably return there and rebuild it.”