The Gaza Strip needs 30 tons of gas per day for the simple daily necessities of life (Al-Jazeera)

GAZA – Mohammed al-Satri stood for about 6 hours in a long queue in front of a gas station in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, to fill a 12-kilogram cylinder of cooking gas, which the Israeli occupation allowed to pass through humanitarian aid through the Rafah land crossing with Egypt, under the temporary truce agreement with the Islamic Resistance Movement "Hamas".

Since the second week of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip on the seventh of last month, the house has run out of cooking gas, as have most Gazans, who had to return to primitive means such as clay ovens and firewood fire, and even set fire to their old clothes and belongings to manage their daily lives.

These means compounded the suffering of Al-Satri's wife, who suffers from a chest disease, which makes her suffer from shortness of breath, as a result of staying for long hours in front of the fire to prepare food for her family of 8 members, which Al-Satri expressed by saying, "The fire of firewood is harmful to health and financially expensive, due to the crazy rise in the prices of firewood."


Severe congestion

Limited gas stations in the southern Gaza Strip witnessed severe congestion of citizens, women, men and children, who lined up next to their cylinders, which stretched in a long line for tens of meters, while some preferred to sleep at the doors of these stations, to get the opportunity and priority to fill their cylinders, fearing that the quantities of gas described by the local authorities in Gaza as scarce would run out.

The homes of Gazans rely mainly on cooking gas, which Israel has prevented from supplying to the Gaza Strip for fuel and various types of goods and goods, in implementation of its decision to impose a suffocating siege in conjunction with the aggression.

Al-Satri said that a 12-kilogram gas cylinder costing 70 shekels (about $20) is enough for his family for less than three weeks, and due to his dire financial situation, he was unable to fill a second cylinder he owned before the war broke out.

It is no different from the case of the septuagenarian "um Wassim" from the line, and no less need for cooking gas, which hosts in her home in the city of Khan Younis adjacent to Rafah, two displaced families from Gaza City, and said to the island net "We do not have gas from the first week of the war, and we are home 50 individuals, my children and the children of the displaced."

And prejudice um Wassim on the pain of her age (70 years), and stood since the early morning hours in front of a gas filling station near the European Gaza Hospital, and said, "From 6 am and I am here, and God willing, fill gas and does not run out before I reach the turn," referring to the large numbers preceded her in the queue waiting despite her early arrival, and some of them spent the night in front of the station, which stood members of the police to organize work, to prevent quarrels due to severe congestion and urgent need For gas.

No more than one cylinder per person is allowed, in the hope that the quantities of cooking gas that will be received during the four days of the truce will meet the minimum needs of the population, in anticipation of renewed aggression under the siege in place.

Long queues in front of cooking gas filling stations in the southern Gaza Strip (Al-Jazeera)

Scarce quantities

According to Salameh Maarouf, head of the Government Media Office, humanitarian aid received through the Rafah crossing under the interim truce agreement, including fuel and cooking gas, is insufficient in quantity and quality, and does not meet the enormous needs of more than two million Palestinians.

Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, Maarouf said that the quantities of gas received "simple and limited", where 4 trucks of gas per day, explaining that the sector needs under the current circumstances resulting from the war and blockade to 30 tons per day of gas for the requirements of simple daily life only, while the rate of consumption before the outbreak of the war 6 thousand tons per month, by 200 tons per day.

The government official confirmed that the occupation authorities did not abide by the quantities agreed upon under the truce agreement, nor did they commit to ensuring that aid, including fuel, reaches Gaza City and the northern areas of the Gaza Strip.

On the first day of the truce, the occupation authorities allowed the passage of only three trucks, two trucks of canned food and drinking water, and the third coffins, and on the second day, they allowed 3 trucks to go to Gaza City and its north, including no liters of fuel or quantities of cooking gas.


A collapsed human reality

In the same context, the spokesman for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, Dr. Mohammed Abu Musabeh, told Al Jazeera Net, while he was accompanying a convoy of trucks waiting near the junction of martyrs leading to Gaza City, to allow them to pass, that the convoy consists of 33 trucks of humanitarian and relief aid.

Abu Musabeh added that the population in the northern Gaza Strip is in dire need of various types of humanitarian aid, including fuel and cooking gas, hoping that the efforts of the Red Crescent and UNRWA will succeed in delivering double quantities of this aid to the population in Gaza City and the northern areas of the Gaza Strip, who are living in a collapsed humanitarian reality.

On the first day of the truce, 200 trucks entered through the Rafah crossing, and on the second day, 197 trucks of humanitarian and relief aid, in addition to 8 trucks of cooking gas during these two days, and Abu Musabeh hopes that the number of trucks will increase during the remaining two days of the truce agreement.

The Red Crescent Society coordinates with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the process of receiving aid through the Rafah crossing, determining the ways of disbursement in the southern Gaza Strip, as well as delivering it to the northern areas, where the head of the government media office estimates the population that is still there and refuses to be displaced at about 800,<> people, representing a third of the population of the Gaza Strip.

Source : Al Jazeera