Ziad Medoukh: “Hello from destroyed Gaza and devastated Gaza”

Believe me: my determination, my courage, my resilience, my patience, and my optimism cannot overcome my utter distress.

After almost four months since the beginning of this horrific aggression by the occupation against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, the situation on the ground is increasingly catastrophic and terrifying.

Life is a bitter taste, in fact, there is no life in Gaza.

Life is completely paralyzed.

There is nothing: no food, no water, no medicine, no electricity, no gas, no milk, no bread, no fruit, no vegetables, no meat, no chicken, no fish, no means of transport, no housing and neither prospects.

Thousands of students are deprived of their lessons, and tens of thousands of students are deprived of their studies.

Thousands of civil servants, employees and workers are deprived of their jobs and salaries.

Nothing is working in Gaza currently: no administration and no commerce.

I am very sad.

I am unhappy, I suffer on a daily basis like all the inhabitants of this devastated region left to its fate by a complicit official international community.

And I am enduring the unbearable.

I decided to write this testimony to share my pain with you friends and people of good will, you are my only comfort in this daily hell.

When I have access to the internet, I try to give news, the problem is that to get to an internet point I have to walk two kilometers and in front of this point, there are a crazy crowd and everyone has the right to thirty minutes only, everyone wants to have news of their family in the south and the communication network is often disrupted and destroyed by bombings

I see your many messages of support and sympathy. The people who offer aid and donations, I thank you very much, I always said that the most important thing is moral and political solidarity, in addition, I am a simple Palestinian citizen of Gaza, I live like all the inhabitants , and I don’t want to be privileged with my network and my many friends and acquaintances.

Even if I don’t respond because the internet network is very weak, your messages relieve me, the Palestinian citizen of Gaza who has lost everything and who is trying to survive with the little hope he has left.

My daily life is very difficult and very complicated.

It’s true that I have experienced a lot of wars, attacks, offensives and carnage.

But I have never experienced a horrible situation like this since my childhood.

Currently moved from one neighborhood to another and from one house to another among relatives and cousins, because the bombings continue day and night everywhere in this open and closed air prison, and tanks can arrive in n any neighborhood at any time.

The problem that in each home there are 30 to 40 people living there between residents and displaced people, and we have to deal with this exceptional situation.

I have become homeless and homeless and have to accept everything in these shelters.

I cannot read or write in these houses, because of the noise, and the presence of dozens of people, in addition I lost my computers and my library with its 3000 books in French after the destruction of my apartment at the beginning of December Last year, I was unable to recover any of my belongings, my clothes, my diplomas, my published books, my research and my courses.

Everyone goes home before 5 p.m., and we sleep around 7 p.m. In the evening we light with lamps which we recharge in the morning with the solar panels, fortunately there is always sun in Gaza, in fact the solar panels have greatly helped the inhabitants of Gaza to have a little light while recharging their lamps, their batteries and their mobile phones during this period of darkness and power outage since the beginning of this attack at the beginning of last October.

For me, at night, I can’t sleep, I think of my murdered brother with his whole family, and I cry alone, I return to my beautiful memories before this attack, I try to dream and hope for a better future, but in vain.

I, who was lifting the spirits of the traumatized youth and children of Gaza, have become shocked and traumatized by the succession of tragic events that have struck my family and all the citizens of Gaza in recent months, and I cannot find anyone to to erase my tears and to calm my enormous anger.

My heart bleeds all the time.

Believe me, I am not pessimistic, and I love life very much like all the Palestinian people, but on the spot, our context is unimaginable, unacceptable and horrible!

For food, we eat only one meal a day and sometimes one meal every two days, there is nothing on the markets to eat, often a plate of rice and a few pieces of bread, and if we drink a cup Coffee or tea is a luxury for us.

In each house, men and women work hard to prepare meals using wood fires, because there is no gas.

It is not money that is lacking but food and essential products, because for 4 months no products have entered Gaza and there is no humanitarian aid arriving in the north of the Gaza Strip.

In addition, there is no international organization or local association that takes care of the destitute and displaced people who are currently very numerous in the Gaza Strip.

According to a latest United Nations report in early January 2024, 90% of Gaza residents suffer from food insecurity.

People here started to starve.

Not to mention that prices are multiplied by ten, and the few products available are very expensive.

A small bottle of mineral water currently costs 5 euros in Gaza, previously its price did not even exceed 0.10 cents

A kilo of rice which cost 2 euros went to 10 euros, a kilo of flour 12 euros before we bought it for 1 euro, and an egg is worth 3 euros, while the tray of 30 eggs cost 4 euros before the attack .

Everything is very expensive in Gaza, and nothing is available on the markets.

Added to all this, there are no fruits or vegetables, in fact, all the agricultural land in the north of the Gaza Strip has been destroyed.

For water, no drinking water for drinking, and even water for domestic use, it does not arrive in the taps, and we buy it very expensive from some stations which still operate, because several water wells were destroyed.

Several contaminated diseases affect residents.

The worst thing is that there is no authority, no government and no municipal services that manage and control the very critical situation.

Everyone fends for themselves to survive.

On the other hand, the Palestinians in Gaza show solidarity among themselves, but sometimes, people have nothing to give, because there is nothing there.

In the morning, everyone’s concern is to find something to feed their family and search for water with great difficulty.

When I walk the streets of Gaza, I become very unhappy, because in every neighborhood there are destroyed and damaged houses, buildings, buildings and civil infrastructure.

I learn every day of the assassination of my cousins, relatives, friends, colleagues, neighbors and students, it makes me very sad because I am helpless and I cannot say a word of condolence to their families.

The feeling of helplessness is horrible.

Imagine, there are no bakeries, shops, pharmacies, restaurants or cafes open.

The people here are very sad, they are preoccupied by their tragic daily life, they think of their missing loved ones and they try to look for food and water for their children, no one speaks to anyone, no exchange, no smile, everyone is in shock; in every family there are dead, injured, displaced and destroyed houses.

Sometimes I wonder how people here manage to survive and still exist.

For the health situation, it is dramatic, no hospital is functioning, all the hospitals are out of service, there are only three clinics in all of Gaza City which serve 300,000 inhabitants and displaced people, in each clinic, there are only five or six overworked volunteer doctors who receive.

5000 patients per day, with no real medicines to give, or expired medicines.

Personally, I am currently ill, I cannot find any laboratory to carry out analyzes or pharmacy or hospital to treat me.

The most moral army in the world has murdered 27,000 Palestinians in Gaza so far, including 22,000 children and women, and injured 70,000.

Not to mention, the destruction of almost 65% of civil infrastructure.

The problem is that this cowardly and criminal army has not achieved any objective set for this far-right government.

It is murderous madness and total impunity without any official international reaction.

The Palestinians of Gaza, despite their anger and their misfortune, greatly appreciate the demonstrations of solidarity throughout the world to denounce this repeated genocide and to call for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Four very difficult months for me and for all the inhabitants of Gaza with painful events, these four months were all terrible.

The month of October 2023, at the start of the aggression, it is true that there were intensive bombings, but I was very busy, I gave interviews to French-speaking media, I had access to internet and I gave daily testimonies and regular contacts with friends and solidarity groups with Palestine in the French-speaking world, the markets were open and there was some food.

Last November, the situation became very complicated, with the start of the ground operation, the evacuation of my family to the south, and the arrival of tanks in my neighborhood, I was surrounded in my home in my devastated neighborhood.

The month of December 2023 was a dark month for me with the assassination of my brother and his entire family, the destruction of my apartment and our building, and my obligation to leave my neighborhood to find refuge with relatives.

The month of January 2024 saw the continuation of the bombings and the arrival of tanks throughout Gaza City, and my obligation once again to look for other houses to live in.

There are many events to tell, I would need pages and books to describe our very difficult daily life under the bombs and in shock with this catastrophic humanitarian situation and this unprecedented disaster, and I do not yet believe that I am still alive, because I see death a thousand times a day, although I am not afraid of death, however, I am worried about our future.

The positive aspect in all of this that makes me proud of myself: I have no hatred.

Palestinian friendships from Gaza which is no longer Gaza.

And Ziad who is no longer Ziad.

French Jewish Union for Peace