A harrowing journey to find food in Gaza

0:00For months, Anas Baba, NPR's producer in Gaza, has been talking to people like Nadia Almasri, whose families were facing starvation amid Israel's blockade on the territory.

0:15Hunger, she says, is when your children cry themselves to sleep. They are too hungry. Her family of 12 was living in a shelter of worn tarps, and Baba found her making bread out of crushed lentils and pasta.

0:33Why are you punishing everyone, she asks. What do we have to do with Hamas? It's not right to make the entire population, more than 2 million people, suffer, she adds. Israel bans international journalists from independent access to Gaza. But Baba is from Gaza. And in the 21 months he's been reporting on the war, he's also been living it. He was eating just one small meal a day and rationing his food supplies until those supplies ran out several weeks ago. I cannot find the basics, just like flour, cooking oil, lentils. Over the war, he has lost a third of his body weight, and he's been observing what severe hunger does to a person's body.

1:16Women faint in the street, children faint in the street. Hunger is a little bit of an addiction. Once you feel that your stomach, your brain, your body is craving something, you will not be afraid of anything, and you can do anything to bring food for your children and for yourself. Israel still tightly restricts the entry of food into Gaza. The food it does allow in is mostly distributed through new sites run by private American contractors. The group is called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF. It operates under protection from the Israeli military. The U.N. Secretary General has said this new system, quote, is killing people.

2:00According to health officials and international medical teams in Gaza, hundreds of people have been killed by Israeli troops as they approach these food sites. U.S. officials have accused American media of spreading Hamas misinformation. After Anas Bhabha ran out of food, he had to make the perilous journey himself to one of these new GHF distribution sites. It's truly a day in my life that I will never, ever forget. Consider this. One Israeli lawmaker has openly said he wants Gazans to starve. Now, getting food has become a deadly venture for many Palestinians.

2:46From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro.

2:59It's Consider This from NPR. Getting food in Gaza today requires putting your life on the line. It's a trek NPR's producer in Gaza, Anas Bhabha, experienced himself on the evening of June 23rd. The account you're about to hear is rare reporting by a journalist from inside a new food distribution site that the U.S. and Israel set up in Gaza, sites the United Nations calls death traps. Before we start, a warning that in this story you will hear the sounds of gunfire and descriptions of violence. Here's NPR's Daniel Estrin. Strict Israeli controls on food entering Gaza have driven widespread hunger.

3:39On the evening of June 23rd, Anas Baba and his cousin walked for hours to get food at one of the new food distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. It's truly a day in my life that I will never, ever forget. We packed a small backpack, water, bandages, first aid kit. Others tuck a large empty sack under their belt on one hip and on the other. And the other side is a knife to protect themselves from the looters and the bandits. Around midnight, Baba joined large crowds waiting to approach the food site. GHF has changing hours and opens and closes the site at very short notice, they say to prevent crowd surges.

4:29But to get there, you have to pass through an Israeli military zone. Baba says some edge close to get to the front of the crowd before the site opens, despite the risk of Israeli soldiers perceiving them as a threat.

4:47This is the moment where everyone here says that's the GHF site, it's open, and now it's 1.30 after midnight. So all of the cars turns on the engine, and they started to race each other, motorcycles. And between them, there is people running between the cars. I saw some people that are being crushed. I saw some people that they were literally underneath the cars. He ran with the crowd. But when they got close to the site, they were shocked to find an Israeli tank. The crowd was wrong. The food site was not yet open. Every single person started to retreat and run. And the tank did not even wait a second.

5:28Baba recorded the gunfire from a distance. He and his cousin threw themselves to the ground. And I heard the gunshots and the people screaming that they are injured and others saying that my brother died and others were screaming, my friend died. It's still in the meantime, 1.48. And the gunfire didn't stop. And I can see in front of me that people are still awaiting. They're not leaving. The Israeli military told NPR people gathered near the site and adjacent to Israeli IDF troops. Quote, reports of injured individuals as a result of IDF fire in the area were received. The details are under review.

6:17At 2 a.m., the gunfire just stopped. And we told ourselves maybe this is a sign from them. We were going to go for another run. I stepped in bodies and they didn't stop. This is another run. This time, the GHF site was open. Baba watched large crowds tear down a fence to reach boxes of food sitting on wooden pallets. I grabbed my cell phone and started to record what I'm seeing in front of me. And people enter, fighting each other to take as much as possible. A woman in her 40s with her son, and that woman, Sweety, with an angry face. She was holding two knives in her own hands and she was screaming at everyone, do not even touch my son or the food.

7:12It didn't used to be this kind of free-for-all. For most of the war, there were hundreds of aid distribution centers across Gaza. UN agencies would send a text message when it was your turn to pick up food and everyone got some. Israel and the US accused Hamas of diverting that aid So they set up the GHF to keep Hamas away. But at the GHF site, Baba saw people he believes were Hamas members, based on their looks, taking food for their families. GHF told NPR it's impossible to screen for individuals affiliated with Hamas, but said it was preventing Hamas from controlling the flow of aid. GHF also said it forbids Palestinians from filming U.S.

7:55contractors at the site. People came to me telling me, look at your forehead. There is three laser points, green laser points, on my head from the American contractors. And one of them said out loud with the speaker, no filming is allowed. Asked about this reporting, GHF acknowledged the concern that the changing hours could expose people to potential Israeli military fire. The military says it's opened new roads and created new signage. GHF says Hamas has wounded and killed people en route to their sites and has killed and threatened Palestinians working with them. 170 rights groups and aid groups have called for the GHF system to be dismantled.

8:41At the distribution site, Baba grabbed whatever food he could find tossed on the ground. I pulled five kilograms of rice. It was open with some sand on it, but I didn't care. It's food, I can wash it. His cousin got trampled on the ground by the crowds, and he helped pull him up. Then they fought upstream through a river of people, trying to leave with their bags of food. Walking back, they were stopped by four masked thieves. They were having big knives, and they told us, you do have two options. Give us half of what you had, okay, or we're going to harm you. When the thieves refused to negotiate, Baba and his cousin threw two bags of food at the thieves and ran away with enough food to give their relatives.

9:25Baba was left with about a week and a half of supplies for himself.

9:32Later that morning, Baba went to the hospital. Health officials said more than 200 people were wounded and 26 killed outside the food site. There is no white shrouds in the hospitals in the meantime. The dead bodies that lying on the ground were covered by the same sacks that they were taking it to fill it up with food. Every day GHF has opened its food distribution sites, including today. Gaza health officials say hungry people seeking food have been killed. And many people were turned from the sites empty-handed. That was reporting from NPR's Daniel Estrin and Anas Bhabha. This episode was produced by Janaki Mehta and Matt Ozag.

10:16It was edited by Christopher and Talyata, Nadia Lancey, and James Heider. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.