Fights in bread lines, despair in shelters

Palestinians receiving food in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip. With the Israel-Hamas war in its second month and more than 10,000 people killed in Gaza, trapped civilians are struggling to survive without electricity or running water. Each day has become a mind-numbing cycle of searching for bread and water and waiting in lines. — AP

FISTFIGHTS break out in bread lines. Residents wait hours for a gallon of brackish water that makes them sick. Scabies, diarrhoea and respiratory infections rip through overcrowded shelters. And some families have to choose who eats.

“My kids are crying because they are hungry and tired and can’t use the bathroom,” said Suzan Wahidi, an aid worker and mother of five at a UN shelter in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, where hundreds of people share a single toilet. “I have nothing for them.”