Palestinian refugees in a tent camp in southern Gaza on Tuesday. Photo: AFP / NTB
Israeli ministers want Palestinians out of Gaza. But inside the rain of bombs, there is something else that breaks the heart of the Palestinian Mahmoud.
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Roughly two million people are trapped inside Gaza while the Israeli bombs continue to fall.
Each one of these has his own story to tell, such as Mahmoud Harara (33).
For several weeks, VG has tried to reach him, without getting a reply. He and his family could have been one of the over 20,000 people who have been killed, but then suddenly there was a sign of life.
Mahmoud’s messenger icon is green again.
The family is alive. But they have been through hell.
– I cannot understand what is happening to me, says Mahmoud to VG.
Their neighborhood in northern Gaza lies in ruins, while they have fled south. There, the bombs are no longer the biggest problem, but hunger.
– Every single day my son asks if I can give him an apple.
Mahmoud calls it an unbearable part of everyday life.
– It breaks my heart, because I can’t buy it for him. I can’t look my children in the eye when I say I can’t feed them.
ON THE RUN: Mahmoud Harara (33) lives in Gaza with his family. Here from 2019 from their now destroyed home. Photo: Kyrre Lien
Now his two children are starving, he says.
– We can only eat one meal a day, and we only get bread. No snacks, sweets or anything else.
The UN estimates that 93 percent of the population in Gaza is at risk of starvation. Never before, in any country, has the UN registered that such a large part of the population is at risk of starvation.
– I have no money anymore, and my clothes are in the house that has been destroyed.
He describes life in Gaza now as a struggle to get food and to survive. He says he has received two sacks of bread from the UN, but that it is not enough.
He has gone around to various UN centers in Gaza in search of food, but even there he has not been able to find anything. Everything has been handed out, he has been told.
– There is no life here. No future, no hope, says Mahmoud.
Mahmoud and his family have fled to a tent camp. Here they boil water, but even drinking water has become scarce in Gaza. Photo: Private
Want Palestinians out of Gaza
The ultra-nationalist security minister Ben Gvir took Monday to advocated the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.
– We cannot withdraw from any territory we are in on the Gaza Strip. I cannot rule out Jewish settlements there, I also think it is important, stated the Israeli minister in the Knesset KnessetIsrael’s national assembly..
Gvir and Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich went on to advocate for a “voluntary transfer of Palestinians” out of the Gaza Strip, and that they should go to countries that agree to accept them as refugees.
Furthermore, they followed up by calling the proposal the “correct, just, moral and humanistic solution” to the war.
In that case, it would mean the displacement of a people, which is a violation of international law.
The US State Department rejects the statements by Smotrich and Ben Gvir about moving Palestinians out of Gaza.
– This rhetoric is outrageous and irresponsible, it says.
Mahmoud and his family now fear being forcibly expelled from Gaza, as around 750,000 Palestinians were expelled when the state of Israel was established in 1948.
– That is what I fear will happen now as well. But at the same time, I am most worried about my family. That is the most important thing now, says Mahmoud.
Middle East researcher at Prio, Jørgen Jensehaugen, describes the statements as follows:
– This shows that for central politicians in the Israeli government, ethnic cleansing is not just a temporary effect of the war, but also a stated goal of the war, he says to VG.
At the same time as the war is being discussed among Israeli politicians, the ground invasion inside Gaza continues in full swing.
The Palestinian authorities report on Tuesday that 207 people have been killed in Gaza in the past 24 hours alone.
Published:
Published: 04.01.24 at 02:03
2024-01-04 01:03:44
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