As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose father Benzion Netanyahu was private secretary to the fascist Ze’ev Jabotinsky, continues his bombing campaign against Gaza civilians, the conditions in the Gaza Strip spin downwards.
BBC News reports on refugees fleeing from the north of Gaza to the south. The refugees in Deir al-Balah are crammed into school buildings hastily repurposed as UN shelters, up to 70 people in a single classroom, surrounded by food waste and swarmed by flies.
“If you want to speak about space, we sleep on our sides because there is not even enough room to lie on our backs,” said Hassan Abu Rashed, a 29-year-old blacksmith who fled with his family in Gaza City. “If you want to speak about food, we hope we will find a few slices of bread per day to eat. If you want to speak about health, the sewage system in the school is broken. If you want to speak about diseases, there is chickenpox, scabies, and lice here. If you want to speak about our condition, we are desperate.”
Another refugee explains the problem, “You could say that we have gone back to the dark ages,” said Mahmoud al-Motawag. “We use the sea for everything. To wash ourselves, to wash our clothes, to clean our kitchen utensils, and now to drink when we cannot find clean water. We eat just one meal each per day, and we beg the fishermen to give us one or two fishes for the children.”
Regional directors of the World Health Organization and the Unicef have released a joint statement calling for “decisive international action” to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, describing the Gaza Strip as a place of “death, devastation and despair.”
