For dinner last Monday, Osama Sawarih and his family sat down to eat flatbread and a handful of rocket lettuce grown next to his tent in southern Gaza. Sawarih looked at his family with concern. They’ve all struggled with stomach pains and diarrhea—signs of malnutrition.
Israeli forces destroyed the family’s house when they razed Sawarih’s neighborhood 16 months ago, displacing the residents. His family packed up some clothes and lived in Rafah near the Egyptian border for more than three months.
When it was safe to return home, Sawarih, a former Muslim who came to faith in Christ a decade ago, did his best to clean up the rubble and set up a tent for his wife and kids, who range from ages 2 to 17. His neighbors are also living in tents. Christianity Today agreed not to use Sawarih’s real name, as converts to Christianity face danger in Gaza.
Sawarih’s family has lived in constant fear since the attacks. Some of their relatives died in air strikes, and one died when thieves attacked him in his home. When Sawarih’s family is sick, they avoid getting medical help at a hospital. A Hamas member could be hiding there, putting an Israeli target on the building, he said.
Now, he’s struggling to find food for his family.
In the past two weeks, Sawarih has watched with increasing alarm as food supplies in Gaza dwindle due to Israel’s 11-week blockade of food, medicine, and other essentials into the Palestinian territory. The markets have no vegetables left, only expensive canned lentils. At home, Sawarih has only enough flour to feed his family for one more week.
He can’t afford the escalating prices. Sometimes his kids work in the fields to bring in extra income, and a church will occasionally send financial support. The Gaza Baptist Church used to hand out food and hot meals once or twice a month, but most food distribution centers have shut down as the food supplies have diminished.
“Our only thought is how to find food for my children,” Sawarih said.
Food security experts warned last week that half a million Palestinians in Gaza face “catastrophic” levels of hunger. Another million people can barely get enough food to eat, and if aid deliveries aren’t resumed quickly, the risk of famine is high, according to the UN-linked organization that monitors starvation risk across the globe.
The organization issued predictions of imminent famine last year that did not come true. But this time could be different.
Israel said that the blockade, which began March 2, is aimed at rooting out Hamas and forcing the release of remaining hostages Hamas kidnapped on October 7, 2023. The government insists Gaza is stocked with essential food and supplies, noting that nearly 450,000 tons of aid entered the region during the two-month cease-fire earlier this year.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Hamas of siphoning off aid as it enters the territory. Yet UN aid organizations say there is no evidence of any significant theft on the part of Hamas.
On the ground, Sawarih said it’s common knowledge in Gaza that Hamas is controlling the aid “to use it as a weapon and protect its members.”
For instance, he said leaders funnel the aid to specific camps to attract people to those locations so Hamas can hide its members among the population. Hamas continues to use Palestinians as human shields to gain the world’s sympathy and garner donations from Islamic communities, he noted.
He stays away from these camps, but now his family is running dangerously low on food.
Sawarih said the terrorist organization also “stores stolen aid, monopolizes it, and sells it at exorbitant prices.” He knows people who have ties to Hamas and have seen the tents of Hamas members filled with food. Those people told him Hamas distributes the food at night, and much of it goes to its own members. He said Hamas also controls many of the merchants and charitable organizations.
Some have tried to raise awareness about Hamas’s thievery, Sawarih said. Protests swept through Gaza in March, fueling the growing anger with calls for Hamas to leave the coastal strip.
“It does not care about the general public,” Sawarih said. “Rather, it exploits them to gain the world’s sympathy.”
Yousef Elkhouri, a Christian Palestinian who lives in Bethlehem, said his family in Gaza is also at risk.
They are surviving on what little canned and dry food they have left, and their health has deteriorated. Elkhouri’s parents, sisters, nieces, and nephews haven’t eaten fresh food or meat for two months, and their water supplies are contaminated. The Christian family, whose heritage in Gaza is centuries old, burns wood or cardboard so they can boil water to make it drinkable.
Elkhouri said churches send financial support to ministries such as the Shepherd Society of Bethlehem Bible College, which provides food, water, and medicine for the Christian community and their neighbors in Gaza. According to some estimates, Gaza’s Christians numbered between 1,000 and 1,200 before the war but have since dwindled to between 600 and 700.
Israel’s renewed bombing campaign adds another layer of suffering. Airstrikes last week killed more than 300 people, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel claims it killed dozens of militants in the strikes and was targeting Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar.
“They barely sleep due to Israeli constant bombardment, and now with waves of heat and no electricity, the situation is getting even worse,” Elkhouri said.
Sawarih added that Israel doesn’t care if everyone in Gaza is killed. “It only cares about its own interests, and it uses Hamas’s stupidity as an excuse to achieve its goals,” he said.
US president Donald Trump addressed the Gaza crisis during his Middle East tour of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates last week. “We’re looking at Gaza, and we got to get that taken care of,” he said. “A lot of people are starving. A lot of people. There’s a lot of bad things going on.”
The president also addressed the status of the remaining 58 hostages Hamas has held captive for nearly 600 days. Israel believes 20 are still alive. “They’re not in good shape,” Trump said. “Some of them are in better shape than others. … We’ll be working with [Israel] to get them.”
Michael Levy, whose brother Or Levy returned home in February after nearly 500 days of Hamas captivity, said his brother looked like a Holocaust survivor. “I want to be very clear: Hamas used food as a weapon,” Levy told CT. “They starved Or.”
Levy said that many days his brother split one can of beans between four men and that he lost 45 pounds during his time in captivity. “He was all skin and bones, and that’s it,” he said.
The Trump administration secured the release last week of Edan Alexander, the last living US hostage. Trump did not say how he would help Israel negotiate for the remaining hostages, but his administration is working on a plan to monitor renewed aid deliveries into Gaza.
The US will back a newly created nonprofit, Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), to set up food and aid distribution centers in Gaza protected by private security contractors to prevent Hamas from stealing aid, according to US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee. He added that Israel, which has agreed to the plan, would not be involved in the distribution of food or in transporting it into Gaza.
The UN has criticized the plan and refused to participate, noting concerns about population displacement, as the initial four distribution sites will be located in southern and central Gaza, which it claims would force residents out of the north.
Jake Wood, head of the GHF, told CNN that Israel has agreed to let the organization establish two distribution centers in northern Gaza as well.
GHF said it will begin distributing aid by the end of May. On Sunday, Netanyahu approved an immediate plan to allow a “basic quantity of food” into Gaza until the GHF plan is operational, and deliveries began on Monday.
Gaza may need more than basic aid to stave off the growing hunger in Sawarih’s family and the rest of Gaza’s 2 million residents. Panic has set in, and people are rushing to the few remaining places with food. Meanwhile, Israel launched an extensive ground campaign on Sunday, leading to more displacement.
On Wednesday, Sawarih could see smoke on the horizon from airstrikes in both the afternoon and evening. As he prepares for a long night of Israeli war planes on the horizon, he prays God spares innocent lives and protects his family from incoming rockets. He also prays for Hamas to meet its end.
“The more people suffer, the more [Hamas] uses it as a card to gain the world’s sympathy,” Sawarih said.
Still, he has felt God’s divine hand of protection over the years as he has lived and served in Gaza. “It’s unbelievable because it does not make sense,” he said. “But you are sure that God is the one who protects.”
