“Our only hope is to stay alive for another day” – Saaed, CARE Palestine.
This is the lived reality for our colleagues in the Gaza Strip who are working tirelessly to provide aid while also being displaced and struggling with the same lack of food, water, fuel and shelter as the people they serve.
The Gaza Diaries tell the personal stories of our CARE colleagues who are living and working in Gaza. They have taken their time to share these emotional experiences with us – please read their stories.
Diary entry #1: Reflections on Eid
Saaed, Emergency Programs Manager, CARE Palestine
The Eid this year was unlike any other Eid in the past. The Eid came but joy and happiness did not accompany it due to the continuation of the war, the siege, and the suffocating hunger we are experiencing here in Gaza.
Usually, our children and us welcome the Eid with new clothes, a toy that we buy our children, a small gift, or a delicious meal. But today, we are awaiting the Eid to come with the hope that it won’t be accompanied by airstrikes and fear and that the Eid will pass without us losing anyone or feeling more sadness and at least safe for a moment.
This Eid is full of sorrow. We are in an endless state of mourning those whom we have lost. Personally, I lost my cousin and his entire family three weeks ago. No one is able to reach their family and relatives or neighbours and loved ones to wish them a happy Eid because of the fear, the pain and the gruelling conditions we are living through, particularly the starvation we are experiencing in Gaza at the moment.
But despite that, there’s hope, faith and steadfastness. There are still people who are trying to find happiness and you see a smile on their faces despite everything.
It is true that this Eid did not bring joy, delight or happiness to our people in Gaza, but it brought a different message that Gaza is still standing and its people are still here, enduring the unimaginable, still hoping for a better day. Despite all the pain, a glimmer of hope remains for a better future and life for us, for our families, children, women and elderly.
Diary entry #2: The struggle for food
Rezeq, WASH and Shelter Projects Manager
Every day we struggle to find flour in the local market to stave off hunger. Fruits and vegetables have become rarities and extremely expensive. For four months now and due to the suffocating blockade imposed on Gaza, nothing has been entering through the border crossings except for a trickle of supplies through international aid organisations. Flour was not available in the local market until a few organisations started to bring in some minimal supplies. Now flour has become available again but in extremely limited quantities and at hiked up prices.
Friday is the weekend, but here I am participating in house chores by preparing food and baking bread. This is a small glimpse of our daily lives, and the suffering we’re living through in Gaza in light of the unavailability of food and the lack of cooking gas.
We haven’t been getting water for more than 15 days, which forces us to carry water in containers up the stairs to fill up our water tanks so we can get running water and carry on with our daily chores, which are filled with suffering.
Falafel is our simple staple food, which was cheap and widely available and affordable to everyone and present in all of our homes. Today it has become a very expensive meal and unavailable in the local market. Most people can’t find this food anymore.
Gaza: How you can help
A catastrophic, manmade humanitarian crisis is being inflicted by the Israeli Government on Gaza. More than 55,000 people have been killed since October 2023 and every single person is at risk of famine. This cruelty cannot and must not continue - we refuse to stand by. Our partners are in Gaza providing critical healthcare to women and children. Our amazingly dedicated staff like Saaed and Rezeq are risking their lives to provide vital support to those in need.
But we are almost out of supplies. CARE urgently needs more funds so that we can scale up our response in Gaza as soon as the blockade of aid is lifted, and provide women and their communities with life-saving support.
Your donation today could help save lives in Gaza:
- £20 could provide immediate nutritional needs for a mother and her baby.
- £50 could provide a month's worth of life-saving medication for two people forced to flee their homes.
- £100 could pay for 400 people to receive a day’s worth of safe drinking water.
