A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Israel has begun what it calls humanitarian pauses in fighting for 10 hours each day to allow more aid to get into Gaza's biggest population centers. This happened over the weekend. U.N.-backed security experts have said 1 in 5 people face starvation in Gaza. Israel's military repeatedly rejects what it calls, quote, "false claims of deliberate starvation."
Amjad Al Shawa is a veteran humanitarian worker currently confined in northern Gaza. He directs the Palestinian NGO Network, or PNGO, which helps coordinate food, counseling and medical services, and he spoke with our co-host Michel Martin.
MICHEL MARTIN, BYLINE: Amjad Al Shawa, thank you so much for speaking with us.
AMJAD AL SHAWA: Thank you.
MARTIN: If you're looking around just where you are right now sort of physically, how many of the structures, for example, are stable, like, where you're living?
AL SHAWA: I was displaced for 15 months, and when I came back, I find so many damages in my home as other neighborhoods. And there is so many rubbles around me. And also, tents were in every corner, in every road, in every street, in all the spaces.
MARTIN: And what about food and water? What kind of access do people have to food and water where you are?
AL SHAWA: It's very, very, very limited access to food. The one meal that we used to have along the four - last four months now is disappeared because there is severe shortage of the food supplies and medical supplies. So we are depending on some bread if we manage to get, or some rice with nothing. There is no fresh food. There is no vegetables, fruit, meat, milk. We have about 55,000 babies. Their mothers can't breastfeed them. Also, there is no milk. Sometimes that - you know, the mothers are boiling the rice and feeding the children. It's so...
MARTIN: What about you, though? Forgive me for interrupting, but I would like to know about you. Like, how are you doing? How is your family doing?
AL SHAWA: You know, we are managing ourselves sometimes with one meal, which could be some rice. Yesterday, I managed to have salad, which cost me about $60 - two dish of salads for all the family, me and my wife and the three children that are with me now. It's not easy mission to live. You know, one kilo of flour, if you wanted to buy, it's about $20 now, plus (ph)...
MARTIN: Twenty dollars for a kilo of flour?
AL SHAWA: Yes.
MARTIN: And do you have anything to cook it with?
AL SHAWA: No. It's only I'm talking about flour, that we just make bread. And we have no cooking gas and no bakeries, so we have to make it with these traditional ovens. Also, if you want to buy one kilo of sugar, you know, sugar for energy - that I could see young men who lost conscious, or they just fall down because they have no power. It's four months now. It's - I'm saying it's engineered starvation.
MARTIN: What about water? Where do people get water?
AL SHAWA: We are dependent on the humanitarian agency to get water to the homes, and it's very limited amounts that they have. Every day, it's three to five liters a day for daily use and for a drink. We used to have before the war 80 liters a day.
MARTIN: So just staying clean must be difficult. Just washing must be difficult because you need that water...
AL SHAWA: Yeah.
MARTIN: ...To drink and to...
AL SHAWA: To have a shower. You know, this is people who are staying in the tents. And talk about the majority of the Palestinians now in tents, and there is missing hygiene items. Now there is soap and other things that is needed, so it's missing. So yeah, thank you to address this water issue.
MARTIN: Can I ask you, like, what will you eat today?
AL SHAWA: I don't know, and I'm not asking, you know? And when I go there, whatever this - whatever what we have, I'm saying we are in good condition. Some people who has not. 'Cause my mission here and others - how to keep people alive, to save the lives as maximum.
MARTIN: How many people do you believe based on your information are at risk of dying from starvation?
AL SHAWA: Yeah, I have be frank. I have concerns about thousands in the next few days if...
MARTIN: In the next few days.
AL SHAWA: To be frank also with you, what is enter, it's only flour. And the flour, I'm talking about nutrition chain. It's not only flour. We need everything - everything - and I cannot separate the food from water from hygiene from medicine. All this package supposed to be. And I called urgently who has this kind of professional physicians on the issue of nutrition to come - to struggle to come to Gaza to save these lives with equipments, with materials, with supplies to save the lives of these children.
MARTIN: That is Amjad Al Shawa. He's the director of PNGO. That's the Palestinian NGO Network. And he is speaking to us from northern Gaza. Mr. Al Shawa, thank you so much for speaking with us and for sharing with us this information about what you see and what you're doing and what you know. Thank you so much.
AL SHAWA: All the best now.
MARTÍNEZ: Yesterday, an Israeli military spokesperson told journalists that Israel is not starving anyone and, quote, "Hamas is using this population as a human shield cynically in order to create this campaign of starvation against Israel." Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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