Roles reversed: A veteran Gaza aid worker pleads for survival

Amjad Al Shawa has spent his career coordinating humanitarian aid in Gaza. As director of the Palestinian NGO Network, he’s long worked to get food, water, and medicine to those in need and is considered the bridge to other civil society organizations. But now, confined to northern Gaza, he says he can no longer provide even the basics for his own family.

“We are managing ourselves, with one meal, which could be some rice,” Al Shawa told NPR’s Michel Martin on July 28. “Yesterday I managed to have a salad which cost me about $60 for two dishes of salad for the family, me and my wife and three children.”

The food system in Gaza, choked by Israeli restrictions on aid, has collapsed. Milk, vegetables, and fresh fruit have vanished. Bread is rare. A kilo of flour now costs around $20. Sugar: $120. Even aid workers, Al Shawa says, are going hungry.

In response to claims of deliberate starvation, Israeli military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin told reporters on Sunday:

“We are not starving anyone. It’s not an aim. It’s not a war aim for us. We are fighting Hamas. Hamas is using his population as human shield cynically in order to create this campaign of starvation against Israel, against the IDF.” Separately, the IDF said it continues humanitarian operations in Gaza and called accusations of deliberate starvation “false.”

Al Shawa’s account comes as international monitors warn that famine could soon be declared in parts of Gaza. Over 470,000 people, about one in five residents, are now living in “catastrophic” hunger conditions, according to the UN-backed IPC classification. It also comes as two prominent Israeli human rights organizations have accused their own government of committing genocide in Gaza, in a new report titled “Our Genocide” — an allegation the Israeli government has strongly denied for more than two years.

The infrastructure around Al Shawa, like much of Gaza, is in ruins.

“I was displaced for one or 15 months. And when I came back, I found so many damages in my home as in other neighborhoods. There is so much rubble around me and also tents are in every corner and every road and every street, in all the spaces.”

He fears the worst isn’t over and that thousands could die of starvation in the next few days.

“We need everything. Everything. And I cannot separate the food from water, from hygiene, from medicine.”

NPR’s Michel Martin spoke with Al Shawa about what he sees each day — and his fears for what comes next.

The interview is edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights

Michel Martin: If you’re looking around just where you are right now, sort of physically, how many of the structures, for example, are stable, where you’re living?

Al Shawa: I was displaced for one or 15 months. And when I came back, I found so many damages in my home, as in other neighborhoods. There is so much rubble around me, and also tents are in every corner, and every road, and every street, in all the spaces.

Martin: What kind of access do people have to food and water where you are?

Al Shawa: The one meal that we used to have for the past four months disappeared because there is a severe shortage of the food supplies. We are depending on some bread, if we manage to get [it’, or some rice with nothing. There is no fresh food. There [are] no vegetables, fruit, meat, milk. We have about 55,000 babies. Their mothers can’t breastfeed them. Also, there is no milk. Sometimes the mothers are boiling the rice and feeding the children.

Martin: How are you and your family doing?

Al Shawa: Yesterday I managed to have a salad, which cost me about $60 — two dishes of salad for the whole family, me and my wife and three children. It’s not an easy mission to live. You know, one kilo of flour [is] about $20 now.

Martin: Twenty dollars for a kilo of flour?

Al Shawa: Yes.

Martin: And do you have anything to cook it with?

Al Shawa: No. I’m talking about flour, that we just make bread. And we have no cooking gas and no bakeries, so we have to make it with these traditional ovens. Also, if you want to buy one kilo of sugar — you know, sugar for energy — I could see young men who lost [consciousness] or they just fall down because they have no power. It’s four months now. I’m saying it’s engineered starvation.

Martin: Where do people get water?

Al Shawa: We are dependent on the humanitarian agencies to get water to the homes, and it’s a very limited amount that they have… every day it’s 3 to 5 liters a day for daily use… we used to have, before the war, 80 liters a day.

Martin: Can I ask you — what will you eat today?

Al Shawa: I don’t know, and I’m not asking, you know? And when I go there, whatever this whatever what we have, I’m saying we are in good condition. My mission here, and others, how to keep people alive, to save the lives as maximum.

Martin: How many people do you believe, based on your information, are at risk of dying from starvation?

Al Shawa: I have concerns about 1000s in the next few days if… What has entered is only flour. If I’m talking about the nutrition chain, it’s not only flour. We need everything. Everything. And I cannot separate the food from water, from hygiene, from medicine. All this package is supposed to be. I called urgently, who has this kind of professional physicians on the issue of nutrition, to come to struggle, to come to Gaza to save these lives, with equipment, with materials, with supplies, to save the lives of these children.

The audio version of this interview was produced by Ben Abrams.