Living and reporting the Gaza war
Situation is getting worse in Khan Younis every day
The city has been one of the main areas where the Israeli military has been operating. Israel has said they are mobilising more troops to destroy and dismantle the military infrastructure of the Palestinian fighters there. They started the military attacks from the outskirts of the city.
Right now they are pressing deeper into the main central neighbourhoods, using different military tactics. Blowing up residential buildings, forcing people to flee to Rafah. They are carrying out attacks in the vicinity of hospitals there. Also in the past hour, we have been seeing smoke on the horizon of Khan Younis as a plastic factory was targeted by the Israeli military.
‘People eat food for birds and animals, not for humans’: Jabalia resident
In videos obtained by Al Jazeera, Palestinians at the Jabalia refugee camp market in the northern Gaza Strip expressed their suffering as they looked to secure daily food sustenance amid dire shortages of flour and food in the markets and an absence of humanitarian aid. “We have no food, only some rice. We do not have flour. There is crowding over the available quantities,” one person said.
“We struggle to survive bombs but frankly we try to survive hunger more. Finding food for the family, for the children, has become a more challenging adventure than surviving war,” says Amer, 32, a father of three who lives in northern Gaza. He messaged the Reuters news agency via eSIM card, residents’ only tool to connect with the outside world because of a ninth day of a communications blackout.
The price of flour has surged along with other food items that are hard to come by in the impoverished territory. “Amid the famine threatening residents of northern Gaza, the people began to grind what is available to make flour, starting with corn and reaching to animal food,” Anas al-Sharif, a Palestinian freelance journalist reporting from northern Gaza, posted on X.
Palestinians shop for food and clothes at the local bazaar as daily life continues in the shadow of war in Jabalia, January 15
“We have been living in suffering for 104 days. Today we are searching for our daily food. There is no flour or wheat. People eat corn, and this is food for birds and animals, not for humans” another person said. “The average citizen in Gaza lives from day to day. We try to secure flour and ready-made bread, but unavailable. People do not have money. The situation is very difficult.”
Israeli military claims ‘many Palestinians joined Hamas after war’
Israeli military officials have been cited by Israel’s Channel 12 as saying that the number of Hamas fighters in Gaza was greater than they expected. The army also reportedly claimed that many Palestinians in Gaza joined the group that rules the enclave after the war.
“The number of rockets and the length of the tunnels in Gaza surprised us, which means that the duration of the war will be much longer than we had planned,” the report said. It also said that senior officials in the Israeli army “admit that there is no military possibility to release all abductees”.
That's one way to 'back up' the claim of 9,000 Hamas terrorists killed
About 1,000 injured Gaza residents treated on French warship
The injured residents of Gaza are being treated in a French field hospital aboard a ship off the coast of Egypt. The Dixmude, a French helicopter carrier, has been docked in the Egyptian port of El Arish, 50km (30 miles) west of the Gaza Strip, since November last year.
The vessel has 70 medical staff and is equipped with wards as well as operating theatres. Nearly 120 injured people have been hospitalised on board, while hundreds more have been seen for outpatient consultations, including follow-ups on injuries and psychiatric issues, Captain Alexandre Blonce told Reuters news agency, calling it an “unprecedented mission”.
A drop in the ocean of need and every wounded patient first needs to be cleared through the Rafah checkpoint. A lot more of these hospital ships are needed and docked directly in or near the port of Gaza.
Palestinian tax revenue remains frozen in Norway
The Palestinian Authority (PA) hasn’t changed its position since November when Israel said it would release the tax revenue money but deduct the portion usually allocated to Gaza and the salaries of the 50,000 plus civil servants there. Since then the position has been the same on both sides. It’s a very dire situation. The PA has lost about $2.3bn in revenue since the beginning of this war. The economy here is really at a standstill.
Those tax revenues are to pay the 140,000 plus civil servants here in the occupied West Bank and the 50,000 in Gaza. But you also have another lack of income because 150,000 Palestinian workers cannot go into Israel anymore and cannot get their wages.
The PA thinks if Israel does not release the allocation for both the occupied West Bank and for Gaza then it is creating further divisions between the two places. The PA wants to send the message that there is only one PA and only one Palestinian people. The US came up with a mechanism by which that money could go to a fund in Norway. At the moment, that money is frozen in Norway as they can’t reach a compromise.
Living under occupation
Like every night, raids across the occupied West Bank
At least 15 Palestinians were detained and this is something that’s occurring every single night since October 7. You have short raids like what happened overnight when the Israeli soldiers retreated. You also have raids that last days like the one that happened in Tulkarem a few days ago that lasted about 45 hours. Previously, you had one in Jenin.
All that is putting a lot of pressure on the Palestinians because the Israeli incursions also come with the destruction of livelihoods.
