‘We’ve turned into monsters’: Famine and genocide are changing society in Gaza

Ahmad Mosabih, 16, carried what he deemed suitable for a journey that was not meant for someone his age. He took an iron hammer, fifty centimeters long, placed a utility knife in his pocket, and left his home at 3 a.m. with one goal: to obtain a sack of flour.

Ahmad had been preparing for this trip since the night before. Once he was ready at dawn, he set out from the western part of Gaza City, from the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, heading southwest towards the al-Nabulsi roundabout. This location is the gateway to northern Gaza through which aid trucks pass. The trucks belong to merchants, commercial companies, or humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza. Regardless of who is operating them, they’re Ahmad’s only hope for a temporary lifeline.

The journey from Tal al-Hawa to the al-Nabulsi roundabout takes just under an hour. Ahmad, accompanied by some of his relatives and neighbors, found thousands of people waiting when they arrived, scattered into groups and looking out apprehensively for any approaching truck. Everyone was trying to get food, but they were also well aware of the dangers: the possibility of gunfire by Israeli forces — which has become a daily occurrence — and the threat of theft or robbery from other Gazans if they do manage to secure a sack of flour.

Ahmad, who later felt immense pride for returning safely, did not feel that pride as he stood among the crowd waiting for flour, but life had forced his hand.

The war has erased the details of social life and left nothing but destruction, and a harrowing daily journey in the attempt to survive. This has been the reality for the thousands of Palestinians making the harrowing trip each day to the aid distribution centers run by the Israeli-backed and U.S.-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, and every time Israeli forces open fire on the crowds and commit another aid massacre.

Ahmad returned to his displacement shelter in Tal al-Hawa at noon, carrying a sack of flour. That was his victory. Yet the transformations in Ahmad’s life extend far beyond securing food, and all of Gaza’s population has undergone the same transformation.

Societal transformation: fighting for survival

Since the war began, the majority of Gaza’s residents have lived in displacement centers, struggling each day to access the bare minimum of life’s necessities. Famine takes hold, eases slightly, then recurs, but the whole time, the killing never stops.

Living under such conditions for prolonged periods has changed society. The new society that is emerging in Gaza, one born under bombardment and annihilation, is all about fighting for food and survival.

“What would drive me to go on a journey like this?” Ahmad muses. “What would make me wake up so early in the morning and set off on a journey filled with death? A stray bullet could hit me. Or maybe a missile like the one that the Israeli army fires on hungry people.”

“I might survive the army and make it home, but I might find a thief waiting for me,” Ahmad continues. “I’ve learned through this war that if you are not strong, your bread will be taken by those stronger than you.”

“This war has turned us into monsters,” Ahmad says. “This was never our life. This was never our nature. This was not what we woke up to do every day.” 

Ahmad talks about how life was different, how homes were full of food, and the land was always cultivated. “Now our land is planted with tanks, missiles, and the blood of the fallen,” he says.

He no longer has the luxury of thinking about the future. When asked about it, he defines “the future” as the next day. “If I survive today, I may talk about tomorrow, but there’s no guarantee I’ll live to see it.”

To live knowing you are being exterminated

Nabil Hammou, 39, can be identified by a circular dust stain on his pants left from sitting on the sidewalk all day. He laments how this is not the life he once knew.

A university graduate with a master’s degree, Nabil used to work at a private company, but his life was turned upside down when his home in Shuja’iyya was destroyed, after which he moved in with his sister-in-law in al-Wihda Street in Western Gaza City.

Despite the hardship, Nabil considers himself fortunate to have found a roof after the bombing and that he did not end up in a tent. Yet driven by embarrassment, he feels compelled to leave the house from morning to night, spending his day outside and only returning to sleep beside his family at night.

To him, this daily sacrifice gives his sister-in-law the space and privacy she deserves. He gives her the day and takes the night.

“Look at us,” says Nabil. “I sometimes feel ashamed when people pass by and see me sitting in the same place all day. No one knows why I’m here. Some think I’m a beggar. Others assume I have no place to go. And in truth, I don’t.”

Nabil chooses the street so he isn’t a burden on those hosting him. As he sits, others join him from among the displaced. It would seem he is not the only person in this situation.

Dozens of people now spend their days walking the streets, not because they have nothing to do, but because they have nowhere else to go. Many stay with relatives temporarily in overcrowded homes or live in tents unfit for daytime shelter in the extreme heat. They end up on the streets and in public spaces, passing the time away outside walls that are not theirs.

But the new social structure emerges most starkly in the tents. Encampments for the displaced hold no privacy. Thin pieces of fabric separate one family from another, and bathing and using the restroom require long waits. Children are born into hunger and raised in a nothingness characterized by want.

In the coastal Mawasi area of Khan Younis, Amina al-Sayyed, 52, sits in her tents and describes the societal changes she has observed. “Killing is now routine,” she says. “Not an hour passes without hearing that someone was martyred or a whole family has been wiped out. It shapes our children’s consciousness. It’s all they talk about.”

“Not long ago, my five-year-old son witnessed a massacre in Mawasi Khan Younis,” she continues. “He came to me and said, ‘I saw a salad of people.’ That expression crushed me, the way he described it. That’s how he processed the scattered and torn bodies.”

She explains that her children’s lives have drastically changed. Most of their days are spent waiting in lines: bread lines, food distribution lines, aid lines.

“Their lives have changed — or, more accurately, their childhoods are over,” Amina explains. “They are now all responsible for things they cannot provide — food and safety.”

Amina says her children go to sleep every night afraid, and not a day has passed when she has seen them sleep peacefully. But the most devastating thing, she says, is to continue living knowing you are being actively exterminated, and being unable to stop it. 

“We are being exterminated… and we know we are being exterminated,” Amina says. “The world knows it, it sees it. But it continues.”