Food and clean water remain scarce in much of the southern Gaza Strip as families prepare for the Eid holiday this weekend, marking the end of the Muslim Hajj pilgrimage.
People in Gaza are “eating pigeon food” to survive, the Doctors Without Borders humanitarian group said Saturday, while World Food Program deputy executive director Carl Skau said at least 1 million people in southern Gaza are “trapped, without clean water or sanitation.”
“From the south to the northernmost tip of the Strip, people are traumatized and exhausted,” Skau wrote on X. “The level of destruction is shocking. And the challenges our staff are facing when doing their lifesaving work are like nothing I have ever seen.”
Many Muslims will fast on Saturday in solidarity with those on the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca. On Sunday, over a billion Muslims across the world will celebrate Eid al-Adha, which marks the end of Hajj and commemorates the sacrifice that Ibrahim was prepared to make of his son Ismail, as recounted in the Quran. To mark the occasion, many Muslims decorate their homes, worship communally at the mosque and meet with their family, usually to enjoy meat-based feasts that are shared with those in need.
A majority of Gazans lived in poverty even before the war, but residents find ways to celebrate the festival nonetheless, hanging up decorations and sharing sweets with children. However, this year, Eid is overshadowed by the ongoing conflict and the growing humanitarian crisis. The director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said this week that a “significant proportion” of Gaza’s population is facing “famine-like conditions.”
GET CAUGHT UP
Stories to keep you informed
“There is no Eid this year,” Nadia Hamouda, who lost her daughter and lives displaced in a tent in Deir al-Balah, told the Associated Press. “When we hear the call to prayer, we cry over those we lost and the things we lost, and what has happened to us, and how we used to live before.”
Beit Lahia resident Muhammad Mamdouh told The Post on Friday: “There are often no foodstuffs. Vegetables, fruits and meat are not available, and what is available cannot be purchased by most residents due to the high prices.” Mamdouh, who lives in a partly destroyed house with his family of six, added, “I spend most of my day searching for food for my family.”
Gazans are also contending with the onset of punishing summer temperatures, struggling to survive in tents with little electricity. Progress toward a cease-fire proposal remain sluggish, and humanitarian groups complain that the delivery of aid into the Gaza Strip remains impeded by the fighting and the difficulties of coordinating with Israeli authorities.
The Pentagon said late Friday it would be suspending aid deliveries via a U.S.-built pier as military personnel attempt to relocate and shelter the structure from another blast of rough seas. The controversial floating pier will be towed to the Israeli port of Ashdod imminently, military officials with U.S. Central Command said in a statement. The pier was previously damaged by powerful waves in May, causing an estimated $22 million in damage.
“The safety of our service members is a top priority and temporarily relocating the pier will prevent structural damage caused by the heightened sea state,” Centcom said. “The decision to temporarily relocate the pier is not made lightly but is necessary to ensure the temporary pier can continue to deliver aid in the future.”
This week the United Nations said it had paused its aid delivery collaboration with the pier while it assesses whether it was used by Israeli forces in a June 8 operation that rescued four hostages but killed more than 250 Palestinians. The United States and Israel have both denied any use of the pier in the raid.
The Biden administration announced sanctions against an extremist Israeli group that has been blocking aid convoys into Gaza. For several months Tsav 9, a group with ties to West Bank settlers and Israeli military reservists, has been attacking and impeding aid convoys. Friday’s sanctions were a bid to halt activity that U.S. officials say is inflaming tensions between Israelis and Palestinians and worsening the already grim circumstances for civilians in the enclave.
The U.N. children’s agency UNICEF warned that almost 3,000 children have been cut off from treatment for malnutrition in southern Gaza, “putting them at risk of death as harrowing violence and displacement continue to impact access to healthcare facilities.” There are “only two stabilization centers for severely malnourished children” functioning in the Gaza Strip, OCHA, the U.N. humanitarian agency, said in an update Friday.
U.S. Central Command said it had “successfully destroyed two Houthi uncrewed surface vessels in the Red Sea” late Friday, as well as a drone launched from a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen. “It was determined these systems presented an imminent threat to U.S., coalition forces, and merchant vessels in the region,” said Centcom. Yemen continues to target Western military and commercial ships in a campaign to halt the Gaza war.
At least 37,296 people have been killed and 85,197 injured in Gaza since the war started, according to the Gaza Health Ministry on Saturday, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and it says 298 soldiers have been killed since the launch of its military operations in Gaza.
Hazem Balousha contributed to this report.