Center for the Defence of the Individual - Winter 2013 in Gaza: A life of deprivation, no electricity, at the edge of hunger
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חזרה לעמוד הקודם
10.12.2013

Winter 2013 in Gaza: A life of deprivation, no electricity, at the edge of hunger

In 2013, shots fired by the Israeli army killed a Palestinian child in Khan Younis. On October 28, 2013, the court dismissed a civil claim HaMoked filed against the state on behalf of the child's family. The affidavit given to HaMoked by the father for the purpose of receiving a court fee waiver, provides a harrowing description of day-to-day life in Gaza.

The father, the head of a large family from Khan Younis' Amal neighborhood describes: "The situation in Gaza is the worst it has ever been. There is no work at all. Unemployment is very high and most people, myself included, live well below the poverty line. None of my adult children can find work, not even my daughters who went to university and got their Bachelor's degrees. [People] do not have electricity for most of the day. […Gaza] gets electricity for two to three hours. Sometimes we get no electricity for a whole day and we are forced to live like they did thousands of years ago, without electric appliances […] We cannot buy candles because there are none on the market, and when they are available, they are very expensive!"

The father, who owns a gas station, spoke of the severe fuel shortage and the dire poverty his family has found itself in: "The situation in Gaza has a direct impact on the price of goods - from food and drink to various building materials and consumer goods. Prices in Gaza are very high and we cannot afford to buy basic products like meet or even poultry. We live on rice and vegetables mostly [...] I see and feel death every day - when my children cry with hunger, or when they go to bed hungry, or when I see my daughter who goes to university and cannot study for an exam she has the next day because we have no electricity and no candles, and I have to wake her up very early so she can study for an hour or two before the exam.

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