Fighting in Gaza, situation of civilians and more

Palestinians wait to receive food at a donation site at a refugee camp in Rafah, southern Gaza, on December 23, 2023. (Saher Alghorra/AFP/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images)

Displaced Palestinians inside Gaza have described overcrowding, skyrocketing food prices, hungry children and poor sanitary conditions.

CNN spoke by phone to several people trying to survive in Rafah in the south, where thousands have fled despite already being 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.

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

Umm Omar, 50, is also displaced in Rafah and lives in a tent. During the ceasefire, his family briefly returned home 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 the group made do with 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 humiliating doesn’t even come close to describing it,” he told CNN.

In recent days, large groups of civilians desperate for food have been seen surrounding aid trucks arriving to provide aid to Gaza.

The United Nations has warned that the humanitarian situation in southern Gaza is deteriorating. He warned that the amount of aid coming to the enclave is “grossly inadequate.”