These are the terrible conditions in southern Gaza, where overcrowding is increasing

(CNN) — As Israel steps up its ground offensive, displaced Palestinians inside Gaza have described overcrowding, skyrocketing food prices, hungry children and poor sanitary conditions amid severe limits on entry of food and supplies into the coastal zone.

CNN spoke by phone to several people trying to survive in the southern city of Rafah, where thousands have fled, even though it is already the most densely populated part of Gaza.

“The way I survive is by begging here and there and taking help from anyone,” said Abu Misbah, a 51-year-old construction worker who is trying to support his family of 10.

Vegetables and fruits are out of reach, he said. His children asked for oranges, but he could not buy them.

“We have never been through this situation before. “We were a middle-class family,” he said. “Now, since the war, we buy dates which we used to get free everywhere. “We want a solution to our miserable suffering.”

He, like most others in blockaded Gaza, faces warnings from aid groups that famine is imminent. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the entire population of Gaza has already been classified as being in a state of crisis.

Israel closed its border with Gaza and began an intensive bombing campaign in response to Hamas attacks on 7 October, followed by sustained ground offensives. The fighting has created a humanitarian crisis across the Palestinian territory, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes.

Israel this week expanded its war campaign south of Khan Yunis, warning residents to evacuate the area. The United Nations, for its part, warns that Gazans have no safe place to go.

“What kind of life is this?”

Umm Omar, 50, is also displaced in Rafah and lives in a tent with her family. During the ceasefire, they returned home briefly to find all the windows and solar panels broken, and the kitchen destroyed.

“There are nine of us in a two meter by one meter tent,” he said. “We bought this tent ourselves; “No one helped us or provided it to us.”

Omar said they received canned food and estimated that most food was at least four times more expensive than before the war. Even finding medicines has become difficult.

“Life is hard and humiliating; “The word derogatory doesn’t even come close to describing it,” he told CNN.

Palestinians flocked to buy frozen meat after Israeli authorities allowed entry into Gaza City from the Karem Shalom crossing. This is the first time that frozen meat has entered the market since the war between Israel and Hamas began. (Abed Rahim Khatib/dpa/Getty Images)

Displaced Palestinians who fled their homes due to Israeli attacks take shelter in a tent camp in Rafah, southern Gaza, on December 29, 2023. (Shadi Tabatibi/Reuters)

Mahmood Harara used to earn his living by selling goods on a cart. Now the 47-year-old man from al-Shujaiya is also in Rafah, living on the streets with eight members of his family, including five schoolchildren.

“My house was destroyed and my two children were injured in the attack on our house,” he said.

Like thousands of others, the family lives in a makeshift tent made of nylon and wanders the streets in search of food. They left home without luggage and without a mattress for the tent. Harara said his family received no help and the cost of food was “beyond imagination… Your son asks you for a piece of bread and you can’t give it to him. What kind of life is this?”

Harara said he walked three kilometers to the hospital so he could go to the bathroom. Infectious and respiratory diseases are now spreading in parts of southern Gaza due to lack of sanitation for displaced people.

Even access to drinking water is extremely difficult and their children feel cold at night, he said. No member of the family has been able to take a bath for several weeks.

Aid groups warn of famine situation

In recent days, crowds of civilians desperate for food have been seen surrounding aid trucks arriving in Gaza. The United Nations assured that the humanitarian situation in southern Gaza is deteriorating and warned that the amount of aid entering the enclave is “grossly inadequate.”

Gaza’s youngest children are at risk of severe malnutrition and preventable death as the risk of famine continues to grow, according to a UNICEF statement last week.

The Children’s Aid organization estimates that in the coming weeks, “at least 10,000 children under the age of five will suffer the most life-threatening form of malnutrition, known as acute wasting, and will be in need of medical food.” Will be required.”

“The risk of starvation is already real” for many families in Gaza, UNICEF said.

An IPC report the same week concluded that almost all of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents now face severe hunger and the entire population of Gaza City is classified as being in a state of crisis – facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity. This is the largest number compared to people with. IPC initiatives have always been classified.

“Too many adults are starving so that children can eat,” the IPC report said, adding that humanitarian access must be restored throughout the region to enable the rapid delivery of life-saving assistance.

“The IPC emphasizes that these conditions must not continue,” the organization said. Yesterday’s warning about famine in the coming weeks and months may still go away. But we have to act now.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has repeatedly said the ceasefire is necessary to allow large-scale aid delivery to the people of Gaza and warned that a potential “catastrophe with potentially irreversible consequences” is underway.

He warned, “Under constant shelling by the Israel Defense Forces, and without shelter or the bare necessities for survival, the desperate situation is likely to soon lead to public order collapse, making even limited humanitarian assistance impossible.”