Bearing witness to the destruction in Gaza

‘The biggest need is a ceasefire’

Despite the unprecedented challenges, humanitarian aid has been reaching Palestinians in need. To date, CARE has provided approximately 620,000 people in Gaza with food, water, shelter supplies, health provisions, and other lifesaving assistance.

But, as Mahla saw, the needs are still great, and ever-changing.

“This has been going on for months, so the humanitarian needs every week, every day, is higher than what it was yesterday,” she said.

“The aid coming in is not being increased. Imagine a situation where the displacement continues, the bombardment continues. Humanitarians are forced to deliver humanitarian aid amid shelling and airstrikes. The needs increase, but the supplies are decreased. So of course, we need everything.

“But before all this, the biggest need here is a ceasefire.”

Mahla was in southern Gaza for the August 8 evacuation order that displaced thousands of people in Khan Younis — most of whom had already been repeatedly displaced – and she heard frequent airstrikes near where she was staying.

“As I sit here today in Khan Younis, with bombs and airstrikes flying overhead, I feel at a loss,” she explained. “Another school hit today, another place where Palestinians went to seek safety and shelter. But I am here now, and I can tell you, there is no safe place in Gaza.”

The endless evacuation

“Yesterday we were driving through where the people in the eastern part of Khan Yunis were asked to evacuate to. And it was almost surreal — absolutely heartbreaking. Hundreds and tens of people walking with whatever they have in plastic bags, garbage bags,” Mahla said.

According to the United Nations, over 200,000 Palestinians have been affected by nine evacuation orders since the beginning of August, with roughly 84% of the Gaza Strip having come under evacuation orders in the past year.

“I saw elderly people, disabled people, and piles of mattresses with them, small children carrying much more than their body weight,” Mahla said. “It felt like a lot of them had no shoes. Children were wearing adult shoes. And I learned today later that it’s because shoes are not in the supplies.”

Sun-scorched flowers

The intense heat of the past several months has added additional stress to communities already in constant crisis conditions. Researchers have warned that the rising worldwide temperatures will have a disproportionate effect on the Middle East.

“The weather was so hot, so hot. Everybody was sweating,” Mahla said.

“I looked at the faces of these children, they are not able to open their eyes because the sun is so strong.

“For me, it struck like as if it’s a flower, which we have left out in the open without any water to prevent or protect it from the sun.

“I kept thinking, when did they last eat? When are they going to sleep tonight? How many times have they done it before? Whenever they will go to sleep, what will be the last imagery in front of their eyes?

“There was an absolute sense of exhaustion, fatigue, and helplessness.”

“We drove around and walked around the coastline, and the entire coastline, maybe eight or nine miles, was rows and rows and rows of tents of plastic and on the beach by the sea,” Mahla said.

“The weather is not only very hot, but it’s very, very humid. A lot of people said it is practically impossible, impossible to be in the tent during the day.”

The heat and water crisis has led to a massive outbreak of skin infections, particularly among children, with the World Health Organization recording over 103,000 cases of scabies and lice, 65,368 skin rashes, and 11,000 chickenpox cases.

Most recently, there has been fear of a polio resurgence.

“We are anticipating and preparing for the worst-case scenario of a polio outbreak in the coming weeks or month,” Francis Hughes, the Gaza response director at CARE, told the Associated Press.

“We are not optimistic because we know that doctors could also be missing the warning signs.”

Mahla agreed, saying it was all a symptom of the overall conditions.

“We heard about children getting so much skin disease because of the heat, humidity, the coarse sand, and no ability to get any treatment or even to wash properly,” she said. “People are just in hugely crowded conditions, and the incinerators are not working.”

Too much trash, not enough food

“The health system is on its knees,” Mahla went on.

“The humanitarians are trying their level best, but with so many restrictions, which we have, we cannot bring supplies. The very much-needed essential supplies even related to health and agricultural inputs, water, sanitation, hygiene. CARE supports a clinic here, and half of the patients that we get are children. It’s heartbreaking when your team tells you the patients come back because they go back to the same conditions.”

Food and nutrition also remains a massive problem here.  The UN reports that one hundred percent of the Gaza population is facing a hunger crisis, with 576,600 people experiencing famine-levels of starvation.

“Of course, the frequency and the diversity of the diet which people have is extremely limited,” Mahla explained. “People are restricted in a very small area, which is sometimes called like a humanitarian zone, but it is not protected. It is not safe from attacks, and it does not have the required humanitarian services within it.”

 

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A lost year of school

Since the conflict escalated, 31 out of 36 hospitals in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, severely impacting healthcare delivery.

Additionally, nearly 90% of school buildings have been damaged or destroyed, including all 12 of Gaza’s higher education institutions.

As of July 30, all of enrolled students in Gaza have lost one full scholastic year.

“I met a family today that has evacuated 21 times,” Mahla said.

“There was a baby which was six months old, which means when they started evacuating, the lady was pregnant. They had two twin girls, this six-month-old baby, and they were living inside a destroyed building.

“It looked so dangerous, it could fall at any moment. It appeared like that. They had very limited belongings. This little girl, the twins, they sat in the corner holding onto their Mickey Mouse, and their mom said in all the evacuations, this child has not been able to leave her toy.

“This is one of many stories.”

Mind-boggling destruction

“The amount of rubble and destroyed buildings is hard to imagine if you are not here,” Mahla said after walking through the neighborhoods in the southern strip.

“We were in Al Qarara today, and when we looked at the destruction, it was mind-boggling. I heard so many examples where people pointed out to destroyed buildings, saying that they believe that there are bodies there, but they have no means to bring them back.”

The airstrikes throughout the region have been nearly constant, and, while Mahla was there, an airstrike hit just blocks away.

“You can hear the airstrikes,” she said.

“You can hear it in our guest house here. We can feel the impact a few times a day. What I have been hearing on the ground is something which as a humanitarian I have never seen. The scale and level of suffering, the displacement is catastrophic. The human suffering is beyond.”

“I’ve seen children walking alone, unaccompanied children carrying their entire lives on their back,” she said. “I have not met a single person, a single person who has not been evacuated at least five times. I have met people, evacuated even 25 times, pregnant women, infants, children.”

 

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Why humanitarian work is so difficult in Gaza

“The limitations we have are at two levels,” Mahla explained.

“One limitation which we have is our ability to access the people who are in need. We do not have humanitarian access to most parts of the strip. Wherever we do have access, it is inconsistent.

“We cannot go to places in a safe way. Humanitarian convoys, humanitarian actors have been targeted and killed. Civilians and civilian infrastructure are being destroyed, and we cannot reach those places. The humanitarian convoys have been attacked, humanitarians have been attacked. The risks are huge, and this is limiting our ability to provide lifesaving assistance.”

The UN has reported that at least 289 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, with more than half of the total 2023 aid worker deaths worldwide recorded in Gaza between October and December.”

“The other restriction which we are facing is our ability to bring in supplies,” Mahla went on.

“We have so much restriction about bringing hygiene items, dignity kits, and medical supplies. For example, we have a lab and we have lab equipment, but we cannot bring in the supplies.”

Mahla noted, there is also a third level of difficulty, which is that humanitarians are also suffering.

“As humanitarians, we are trying our hardest,” she said.

“But one thing to note here is that humanitarians at CARE and other organizations, they themselves are affected. A lot of my team members, I would say almost all of them, are dealing with personal loss as well as multiple times of displacement.”

Amidst all of this, though, there is still hope.

“We have delivered lifesaving assistance in war zones before, but, we’ve never seen anything like this,” Mahla said. “But this can be stopped. This is man-made. I do believe those who have the power to change can act for humanity and stop this now and enable humanitarians to do their work.

“We can try our level best and scale up the response to multiple proportions, but this cannot happen without a ceasefire, without protecting aid workers and civilians, and without sufficient funding.”

CARE continues to call for an immediate ceasefire, the return of all hostages, and the passage of unfettered humanitarian aid into Gaza. Click below to find out how you can help.