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Gaza -

“We want to live... by God, we are dying of hunger” are a few words that Rajab Al-Borai, a thirty-year-old, expresses what he described as “the catastrophe of the northern Gaza Strip.” The holy month of Ramadan has arrived for the citizens, and famine has been ravaging them for a few months, as a result of isolation and the occupation’s obstruction of humanitarian supplies reaching them. .

Rajab feels severe pain, but he refuses despair and submission. He has escaped death twice during the Israeli war raging in the Gaza Strip since October 7 of last year, but he still loves life and clings to hope.

This young man and his family insisted on staying in their home in the Tal al-Zaatar area in Jabalia, north of the Gaza Strip, and refused to move south, exposing themselves to death by bombing or starvation. He told Al Jazeera Net, “People in Gaza are dying everywhere, and if death is necessary, let it be in our homes in the north, and not in Tents and schools.

Press coverage: Exorbitant prices for small quantities of vegetables in northern Gaza in light of the continuing siege and the war of starvation and extermination pic.twitter.com/wXu04ghlSq

- Al-Qastal News (@AlQastalps) March 16, 2024

Searching for food

A few weeks ago, one morning last February, Rajab accompanied young men on a trip fraught with great dangers, to search for food in the agricultural lands adjacent to the Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing in the north of the Gaza Strip. Two of them were martyred, and the others were injured, and Rajab’s share was 14 pieces of shrapnel that penetrated all over his body.

“Our people will dine on potatoes.” These were the last words Rajab heard from three young men who had advanced a long way towards a land planted with potatoes, abandoned by its owners due to the danger of reaching it. Two of them were martyred, and the third of them returned with an amputated hand, while Rajab remaining with other young men a few meters behind them was sufficient. Saving them from certain death.

He says, "They paid with their lives for a simple dream of bringing a few potatoes as dinner for their families. We ventured to reach those dangerous areas to bring hibiscus, which has become our only food in the north, but the missing potatoes with all the vegetables tempted them to advance further, and it was about 200 meters away from the Israeli security fence." .

The injury forced Rajab to use a crutch to help him walk, and this was not the first time he had been saved during the war. His greatest salvation - according to his description - was his and his family’s escape safely from the horrific massacre committed by Israeli warplanes on October 31 of last year in the area. “Block 6” in Jabalia Camp, which claimed the lives of about a thousand Palestinians, including martyrs and wounded, as a result of violent raids that destroyed dozens of homes in the area.

A few days ago, Rajab endured his injury and rushed among crowds of Palestinians, young and old, as hunger drove them towards the “Al-Tawam” area, northwest of Gaza City, waiting for the air humanitarian aid planes would deliver, but he returned to his family with complications from his injury as a result of the intense stampede.

“We are not going to fight, we are going to get food.” A Palestinian tells his testimony about the targeting of those waiting for aid at the Kuwait roundabout northwest of #Gaza #Gaza_War pic.twitter.com/NTNDaqP1XD

- Al Jazeera Channel (@AJArabic) March 15, 2024

Resist hunger

On the sidewalk in front of his house, Rajab found a space that could be used to grow simple agricultural crops. He says that it is “few and in a small space, but a little is better than nothing, and a feeling of hunger and helplessness.”

The idea of ​​planting the sidewalk, which is no more than a path two meters wide and 10 meters long, came to Rajab’s father’s mind, even though they had never worked in agriculture, but “hunger” drives people to search for available means to survive.

Rajab planted this area with seeds and seedlings of beans, tomatoes, green peppers, strawberries, radishes, onions, and molokhiya, and they began to flower.

He hopes to eat it with his family during the month of Ramadan.

This newly married young man, who weighs 50 kilograms after losing 10 kilograms due to hunger and food scarcity, says, "We tried everything in the north, we ate everything, and perhaps we will even eat tree leaves."

Rajab and his family struggle to provide water to irrigate what they jokingly describe as “the farm,” and for drinking and other household uses, from a well located 100 meters away, using plastic gallons, and its owner runs it on solar energy, in light of the complete power outage since the outbreak of the war, and the fuel running out.

“We will not surrender to hunger,” Rajab says, proud of their experience in home farming. It impressed neighbors in the region, and they imitated and implemented the idea in search of ways to escape famine.

This famine recently prompted dozens of families from Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip to flee south, after months during which they refused to flee, despite the risks of bombing and killing. However, Rajab and his family, consisting of 8 families (about 30 individuals, most of whom are children and women), reject the idea of ​​leaving and fleeing.

Rajab comes from a refugee family from the town of “Damra,” which is located behind the security fence within the so-called “Gaza envelope settlements.” He says, “We have been living through the seasons of the Nakba for 75 years, and we do not want to die in the streets, tents, or shelter schools. We will remain in our house in Jabalia until God wills.” .

Source: Al Jazeera