‘We went back to the Stone Age’

In response to the devastating Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, the group that controls the Gaza Strip, Israel imposed a so-called full siege — cutting off nearly all water, food, electricity and fuel to the more than two million Palestinians. in Gaza. It also launched thousands of airstrikes on the enclave and sent ground troops to try to eradicate Hamas.

A brief ceasefire, the first since the war began seven weeks ago, came into effect on Friday, and as part of a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, dozens of trucks carrying water and other vital humanitarian aid entered Gaza.

Still, it was far less than what normally flowed into the area before the war, and there was no indication that the freer flow of aid would continue beyond the agreed four-day ceasefire.

Before the ceasefire, there was little humanitarian aid – far not what the people of Gaza need – had seeped in. And so, from north to south, in tent camps, apartments, schools and hospitals, crammed into increasingly smaller spaces, residents struggle every day to meet their most basic needs.

Survival has become a full-time, dangerous endeavor.

The days start well before sunrise. Tasks seem simple: fetch water. Baking bread. Buy diapers. Stay alive.

But people don’t always succeed.

Mineral water transported to the area in aid convoys has been sufficient for only 4 percent of the population, according to the United Nations World Food Program. Some desalinated water is still spread in the south, but the north no longer has drinking water sources, according to the UN. People without access to scarce mineral and desalinated water rely on brackish water from wells, which the UN has said is not safe for human consumption.

Flour is also running out and most wheat mills have been bombed, the newspaper said United Nations. Humanitarian organizations have managed to deliver bread, canned tuna and date bars about a quarter of the population since October 7, but distribution has been hampered by fighting and sieges, the World Food Program said. Some farmers slaughter their animals and trade their future livelihoods for the looming emergency.

The World Food Program has warned that only 10 percent of Gaza’s food needs have entered the territory since the start of the war, creating “a huge food gap and widespread hunger.”

“Wheat flour, dairy products, cheese, eggs and mineral water have completely disappeared,” Alia Zaki, spokeswoman for the World Food Program, said at the market this month.