In famine-struck Gaza, another burden: An exhausting search for water & In Gaza, military offensive and civilian chaos hinder food aid - CSM Christian Science Monitor

• By Ghada Abdulfattah Special contributor
• Taylor Luck Special correspondent

Amid an intensifying Israeli military offensive and a deadly famine that is deepening daily, Gazans are facing a third crisis: a lack of drinking water.

In what the United Nations has described as a “man-made drought,” Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip are left chasing down water trucks, washing in seawater, and trekking miles to find enough drops of water to last the day.

It is, they say, an all-consuming crisis.

“This war is not only airstrikes,” Suzan Abu Khaddoura, a displaced mother of four, says as she treks from her sea-side tent to a water vendor. “It is about food. It is about hygiene. It is about water.”

On Tuesday, the Israeli military deepened its operations in the Gaza City neighborhood of Zeitoun – and the number of Palestinians who have died of starvation rose to 303, according to Gaza health authorities, days after U.N. experts declared famine in the strip. But water remained elusive for nearly all Gazans... READ MORE  https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2025/0826/gaza-famine-clean-water 

AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies] 

• By Taylor Luck Special correspondent
• Ghada Abdulfattah Special contributor

Sept. 24, 2025, 2:25 p.m. ET | Amman and Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip

After a harrowing eight-hour evacuation from Gaza City, Mohammed al-Rai, a father of five, returns to a familiar challenge: the hunt for food.

But he is finding it harder than ever to feed his family, he says.

He does not have enough money to buy food in the market, nor does the local charity kitchen near his new home – a makeshift tent – have enough food for him. He just has to wait and see whether a relative can spare him any leftovers.

Some days, Mr. al-Rai’s children eat; other days, they wait in line for a meal handout that never arrives.

“Today, you may get something, tomorrow, nothing,” Mr. al-Rai says, a few days after fleeing an Israeli army offensive in Gaza City with his family in a truck hastily packed with their last belongings. “Now, the suffering cannot be described.”

As several Western nations moved to recognize a Palestinian state, and as U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called for the implementation of measures ordered by the International Court of Justice to halt fighting as part of an ongoing genocide case against Israel, Gaza’s residents face an ever-deepening crisis.

Just as the amount of food flowing into Gaza began to increase, stoking hopes of turning back an impending famine, Israeli forces launched an all-out assault on Gaza City. That assault once again disrupted the distribution of lifesaving aid, threatening to plunge the enclave back into starvation.

Displaced Palestinians say it adds a new level of desperation among families accustomed to hardship.

More aid, less access

The contradiction at the heart of Gaza’s hunger crisis is stark.

On paper, aid deliveries are rising; in practice, bombardments, displacement, and collapsing infrastructure mean families still go hungry.... READ MORE https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2025/0924/Gaza-starving-flee-Israel-military

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