After weeks of great hardship that had exhausted the displaced, now in Rafah, in the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, people are breathing again. As the closest city to the humanitarian aid entry gate, it is the first to feel the effects.
While a few kilometres further north - in Khan Yunis, Deir el-Ballah, Nusseirat - the situation remains serious, here we can now see desalination plants gradually returning to operation thanks to the entry of fuel, and the shortage of drinking water has immediately reduced. In the warehouses of UNRWA, the UN agency for refugees, the quantities of food have increased significantly: family packages of food for two-day meals are now actually distributed every two days, and not every seven as was the case before. As a result, tensions at the entrances to the warehouses have dropped. The distribution of cooking gas has also been rationalized, now organized ward by ward. The weak point remains the total lack of petrol at petrol stations. Those who absolutely need it can still find it, in small quantities, on the black market: 70 shekels (17.5 euros) per liter.
In these conditions, the volunteers of the social organization Sharik have been inserted. As its director Nidal al-Akhras explains to ANSA, their work takes place in Rafah (and also elsewhere in the Strip) in various directions. One of the main ones is activities for children. The NGO's premises are open for three hours every morning. "These are children who have witnessed the horrors of war, who have been under bombardment, who have seen corpses in the streets, who have lost family members," al-Akhras said. The volunteers try to distract them, to make them play, to make them talk, to get them to draw. They also find games, some enjoy coloring their faces. "But there are also those who isolate themselves, who remain silent," al-Akhras adds. Specialist assistance is sought for them.
Volunteers from Sharik (and also from the Red Crescent) are also mobilizing in favor of the elderly, taking care among other things that they receive hot meals. Personal hygiene should not be neglected even in the overcrowded conditions in which these displaced persons find themselves. As a result, they distribute soap, detergents and even feminine hygiene products that cannot be found elsewhere in schools (where thousands of people find shelter).
One of the initiatives they are most proud of is the construction of mud ovens, which they then distribute among those who are forced to live in tents. The ovens are loaded onto donkey-drawn carts and then delivered to those in need. One of these is Imad abu el-Hir, who was displaced 40 days ago from the Shati refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip after losing his family in a bombing. Today, in the Saudi neighborhood of Rafah where he is camped, volunteers brought him a mattress, a blanket and a newly built mud oven.
"Now," says Imad, "I too can make myself useful to the community. Thanks to the oven, I will be able to bake bread for anyone who brings me the necessary flour." That waiting, he says, is now "my new family."
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