Palestinian refugee Dr Shahd Abusalama recounted a ‘horror’ call with her family back in Gaza. [Picture: New Arab/Facebook]
Today is another day millions of Palestinians will face the real threat of being indiscriminately killed by an Israeli airstrike. If they survive the day, they might die inside. Or die of hunger. That is how a Palestinian refugee and activist put it – people feel dead inside.
The horrors of war are unfolding in real-time in front of Gaza’s incarcerated population. With nowhere to hide and nowhere to run, the besieged city’s 2.3 million-strong youthful population must duck and dive for survival each day that Israel chooses to rain bombs upon their homes.
In an emotional interview on Salaamedia, a visibly shaken Dr. Shahd Abusalama recounted her last phone call with her mother. Unable to breathe and anxious, the London-based activist said she had been unable to reach her family since Tuesday evening.
That call, she said, was a “horror call”.
“My last phone call with my mum happened last evening. I’ve been trying to get in touch with them since this morning, but there is no luck so far. My family, right now, they’re not at home. They have been displaced from the north of Gaza, where we usually live,” she said.
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Her family is one of thousands whose lives were uprooted long before Israel issued a warning for civilians to evacuate the northern areas of the Gaza Strip. From there, they fled to the southern parts of the enclave – only to find Israeli bombs pouring buckets down there too.
While on the call, Abusalama’s mother was on the way to one of the few operational bakeries to get bread when, suddenly, Israel shelled the mall.
“Hundreds of people are running in the streets. Some are lying dead in the streets. My mum saw everything happen right in front of her eyes,” she said. “She’s experienced such close encounters with death, almost every day we talk and she’s survived in a miracle.”
The continuous bombardment of a defenceless civilian population has had catastrophic consequences just two weeks into what is expected to be months of aggression. People are dying of hunger even if they survive airstrikes.
“They barely have one meal a day. They don’t have access to water [and] electricity. People share everything and are trying to get by and keep themselves alive, but they feel dead inside … Israel’s genocidal policies that have cut off food, electricity, water, fuel, medicine.”
On another occasion, Abusalama recalled, her family managed to get bread after two days without such a daily essential. Not too long after that, Israel shelled the bakery – those who were standing in the hours-long queue did not make it.
“Most of them were between dead and wounded. It was a massacre. A massacre. People could risk death going to get bread or water. Israel is literally, with its genocidal policies, attacking every means of survival for the incarcerated population of Gaza,” she lamented.
By Thursday morning, the death toll in Gaza had risen to 6 546. The prospects of a ceasefire remained dim, as two more United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions failed on Wednesday.
