Palestinian Journalist: 'We Feel as If We are Already Dead Here in Gaza'
12:04 GMT 13.10.2023 (Updated: 09:22 GMT 05.12.2023)
© AFP 2023 / Ahmed Zakout
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Following the devastating assault by Hamas, Israel has imposed complete siege on the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the militant group. Samer Al-Kattaa, a Palestinian journalist living in Gaza, told Sputnik how Palestinians are enduring the blockade.
Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups on October 7 launched indiscriminate rocket attacks from Gaza on Israeli settlements, and ambushed Jewish civilians and soldiers in neighboring areas, taking hostages. The assault immediately exposed the Gaza Strip to Israeli retaliation, leaving almost 2.3 million people trapped.
"The situation in Gaza right now is very terrible," Samer Al-Kattaa, a Palestinian journalist, told Sputnik. "And nobody can imagine what is going on right now. For me, I was living in the east of Gaza, in Gaza City. But I was forced to leave with my family, because the surroundings and the neighborhood will be destroyed completely. So we decided to go more in the center of Gaza. So we are now in another house, in another neighborhood."
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a series of airstrikes on Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) strongholds located in the poor and densely populated Gaza Strip and exerted a full blockade of the region, shutting off food, fuel, electricity, and water supplies in a bid to force the militants to give up. Meanwhile, the situation is spiraling into nothing short of a humanitarian catastrophe for ordinary Palestinians.
"Everywhere, you can look from the window, you will see people dying, people getting out to another place because their house will be targeted after five minutes. So it's a really, really bad situation in Gaza. Nobody can imagine, and can't stand it," said the journalist.
No Food, No Water, No Electricity
Gaza’s inhabitants have been left without water and at risk of starvation, with hospitals on the verge of turning into "morgues" without electricity, per a warning from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Thursday.
"Before the war, we had a crisis with water and electricity," said al-Kattaa. "But can you imagine now? Now we don't have any source of water or electricity, because they targeted the station of water and the station of electricity. So now we are living without any water or electricity. So just one person in the neighborhood can have a generator and get water for all the surroundings. So it's really terrible. We are not facing a blockade now – we are facing death every minute."
"There is no local emergency. There's only the UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency] schools. They made it for the refugees, or the people who were forced to leave their houses. Now you can say [there are] half a million inside these schools of UNRWA. Those people living in the east of Gaza, in the north. So, they are collecting them inside these schools and give them what they can provide from water and from food. Because UNRWA declared and said there is no more food for all those people. You're talking about millions needing to eat, because they have no place to live and they don't have any money. And those who have money inside the bank, there is no bank open now. There is no local emergency."
Meanwhile, the Israeli bombing campaign has left thousands displaced.
"It's from hell. One bomb can destroy a neighborhood. They are targeting one house, but they are killing people from 5 to 10 houses, all of them under rubble. All of them dead."
13 October 2023, 04:27 GMT
While Palestinian militant groups are reported to have a network of sophisticated underground passages in the Gaza Strip, ordinary people don't have shelters where they can hide from the air raids.
"No, no, we don't have any shelter like underground. We live in flats, apartments. That's it. We have towers, where you can find hundreds of families inside these towers. So you have to wait for death –to be alive or to be dead. So we are dead, but at a different time."
Palestinians have been held hostage to decades-long fighting between Hamas, which does not recognize Israel's right to exist, and the IDF, which launches regular retaliation strikes on Gaza.
Hamas has ruled the enclave since June 2007, following Israel's withdrawal from the region in 2005 and the militant group's subsequent victory in the months-long conflict with Fatah (formerly the Palestinian National Liberation Movement). According to some estimates, the internal political fight in Gaza claimed the lives of more than 600 Palestinians.
The international community's attempts to improve the living conditions of the Gaza Strip’s residents have so far borne limited results. A 2021 video clip, released by Hamas, showed how militants were digging up water pipes in the region and making rockets out of them. (Per the Western press, the EU allocated around €100 million over the past 10 years to build water infrastructure for the Palestinians).
The incessant fighting by Palestinian groups stems from the failure to complete the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and create an independent Palestinian state, according to Moscow. Following the Oslo accords, which laid the groundwork for a two-state solution, the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations proposed a peace plan called the “Road Map” in 2002. However, the roadmap has so far remained ink on paper.
'We Will Die Here, in Gaza'
While the IDF is mulling a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians don't have anywhere to flee the bombardment. Even though Gaza borders Egypt, Cairo has made it clear that it cannot provide the Palestinian enclave’s inhabitants refuge in the North African state.
"Egypt hopes for a resolution of the Palestinian cause through negotiations leading to a just peace and the establishment of a Palestinian state," Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi said on Tuesday, as quoted by Middle Eastern press. "However, Egypt will not allow the Palestinian cause to be settled at the expense of other parties."
Meanwhile, pressure is growing to provide an escape corridor for Gaza's 2.3 million people. On Friday, the IDF urged the evacuation of the Gaza City residents and those living in the north of the Gaza Strip within 24 hours, as the Israeli military seeks to crack down on Hamas militants who are believed to be hiding in Gaza's underground tunnels.
13 October 2023, 11:07 GMT
In response, the United Nations said it is nearly impossible to evacuate 1.1 million people in such a limited timeframe. "The United Nations strongly appeals for any such order, if confirmed, to be rescinded avoiding what could transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation," UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric stated.
Meanwhile, Gaza civilians, shocked by the continuous bombing, uncertain prospects, and the international community's hesitance to stretch a helping hand to those destitute, appear to be frustrated and demoralized.
"I think no one will agree to leave. They will prefer to die inside their houses and not to go into any place, no other place. And there was an idea to go to Sinai, Egypt. But people, from what I can see and I hear, nobody will do that. No, we prefer to die here. Here in Gaza," al-Kattaa concluded.
