Most people in Gaza are eating just one meal a day, with many collapsing from hunger, a Palestinian businessman living inside the enclave has said.
Speaking on RTÉ’s News at One from his family’s tent, Hani Abu Akar said what Gazans were experiencing at the moment “can hardly be described as a life”.
He said: “Everywhere in Gaza we see people collapsing in the streets, and in the tents, because there is no food.”
Mr Abu Akar described how obtaining food has become a daily ordeal, not just because of inflation but because essential food items are simply not available.
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“Sometimes I spend hours just searching for a kilogram of flour or rice. We have no gas or electricity to cook so we search for firewood to light a fire. Even charging a mobile phone or turning on a small lamp at night is a challenge,” he said.
He added: “There is no protection from the scorching sun during the day and the cold at night. There is no privacy, no safety and none of the basic elements of human dignity.”
Hani Abu Akar used to own a company in Gaza before 7 October 2023
The reality, he explained, is that most people were just eating one meal a day.
“The meal is Gaza is just wheat flour,” he explained, adding that rice or lentils could also be bought for large sums of money.
“For one kilo of rice we have to pay at least $45-$50,” Mr Abu Akar said.
Hani Abu Akar said clean water and food is urgently needed in Gaza
Some aid trucks are coming into Gaza, and there have been food drops from the air.
Aid agencies have said this represents just 1% of the needs of Gaza’s population of over 2 million people.
Mr Abu Akar, who is trying to raise awareness of the dire situation, said the aid delivery system had become a “death machine”.
“People push and shove and then gunfire breaks out. I have personally witnessed people being injured or killed simply for trying to get a bag of flour,” he said.
He said the population was now trapped with two brutal choices.
He said: “Either we risk our lives trying to secure food for our children or stay at home and watch them starve.
“This is a choice no human being should ever be forced to make.”
Many Gazans have no gas or electricity to cook
Mr Abu Akar said one small bright spot was the assistance provided by Sheik Mohammed Bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates, who he says was getting food and medicine into Gaza despite the obstacles.
This aid is being made available in community kitchens and in hospitals.
Before 7 October 2023 Mr Abu Akar had a very different life as a businessman.
He also did some advisory work for the Palestinian Authority which controlled Gaza before it lost control to Hamas.
“I owned a company. I had a spacious home, library, garden and warm family residence. All of that disappeared in a single moment of bombing. Nothing remains but memories,” he said.
Read more: UN says 1,373 killed while waiting for aid in Gaza since late May
So how does Mr Abu Akar explain the current situation to his children?
“All our children in Gaza are under pressure,” he said.
“We try to stay together and to speak together. They are children, they don’t understand the meaning of the war, the meaning of genocide, the meaning of holocaust,” he said.
As international pressure to end the war continues, Canada has become the latest country to move towards recognising the state of Palestine.
Mr Abu Akar said that while he was thankful for this, it was only symbolically significant.
Hani Abu Akar described how obtaining food has become a daily ordeal
He said: “Our children cannot eat symbolism. What we urgently need is medicine, clean water, food and shelter. Our most pressing priority is to survive.”
He continued: “We must ask what weight does such recognition have if not backed by real power?
“Can these countries stop the massacres, can they end the starvation?
“Can they halt the flow of weapons, money and political cover to Israel?”
Mr Abu Akar said if people were being “killed, disappeared, wounded or starved” there would be little left to recognise.
“A state without a living people is meaningless,” he said.
Mr Abu Akar said his message to Ireland or any country that wants to help is to try to bring in aid with an international force and not just leave it at a terminal outside Gaza.
