Is poverty a war policy?

by Reham Alnaji

After a long walk to the local market where unfamiliar pale faces were peering around for any possible sources of nourishment, it happened that I met with a twelve-year old boy who asked me for a very small amount of money to buy some food. Sobbing, he told me he had been starving for two days and had nothing to eat though he was surrounded by office buildings and storages belonging to humanitarian aid agencies and full of food supplies. That outraged me and made me wonder what the purpose of these agencies is if they're not fully committing to their obligations of providing aid to vulnerable parties.

The above story is not unfamiliar to citizens of Gaza, and it is clearly not just a product of war. The Gaza Strip had been facing high rates of poverty even before the 2024 war when these rates peaked to 100%. According to OCHA, ‘as of July 2022, the food insecurity rate in Gaza was 65 per cent’, and unemployment rates were very high as well.

This war has seriously created a tougher impact on workers in all fields, since most of them were daily paid workers and owned private businesses. These businesses have not been operating since the war began on October 7th, 2023, leading to a calamity of more than two million humans with no source of income and no means of feeding their families and children.

Other factors which intensified the poverty rate appeared as a result of the war, including the closure of Palestinian banks due to the escalations and the extreme restrictions on banking services. These led to difficulties in commercial processes and exchanges, preventing people from withdrawing or depositing their cash money. Even in the case of withdrawal, they need to find someone who already has a large amount of cash. And then they have to pay a commission of more than 25% to the person who is providing cash.

Internet instability has also been an obstacle to these transactions, being cut off for long periods of time so people weren’t able to buy anything on credit cards or via online local transactions. Currently, with better internet services, people can do this, but there is still a lack of resources and goods to buy, and more tragically, there is no source of income for most people.

During the same walk to the market, I saw hundreds of children crowded around an unfamiliar place. I stopped to ask one of the kids about it and why they were gathering in such large numbers, thinking that the place had just been bombed. Wearing a torn red shirt, and old patched jeans, she told me that the place was a food distribution unit for displaced people, and that she was waiting there for her daily meal. Holding a plastic bag for her portion of the food, she quickly turned away from me to get the meal. She and all the kids gathering there depended on this meal as their only food for the whole day, and without it, they would be starving to death. Dozens  of children have already died from starvation during this war and world leaders are still silent.

Poverty also appears when you see a lot of people selling their own valuable belongings including furniture, clothes, household products and other personal gadgets. On my way to buy a few things from the nearest grocery, I saw Ahmed, who was my student before this war, selling his old school bag and football. I wasn’t able to look at him because I would break down in tears. He had been a brilliant, creative student who really loved his school and classes. After seeing him in that situation, I remembered a day when one of his classmates accidentally stepped on that same backpack during English language class. He had broken into tears and shouted that the backpack meant the whole world to him. Now, he finds himself forced to give it away for the sake of gaining some money. I really thought about giving him another backpack, but I was not sure if he would keep it or sell it.

Infants are suffering these harsh conditions, too. I read a post by one of my colleagues where she described how her family desperately needed milk and diapers for their infant. He depended on water and torn pieces of cloth as milk and diapers are so scarce to find, and if found, they're too expensive. Besides, humanitarian aid agencies do not provide these vital supplies to families equally as their distribution methods lack order and organisation. I have personally heard and read claims by people who live next to their office buildings that such agencies are selling humanitarian aid to merchants for huge amounts of money. I do not know if this is true and I cannot specify any accusations, but I really urge the administrators of these agencies to carry out investigations into the theft or sale of humanitarian aid and to develop a more structured way of bringing accountability to those engaged in misconduct. In addition, I believe that they should establish a fair and organised system for distribution and carry out field visits to the vulnerable people. Currently, most persons affiliated with misconduct and stealth feel so free because there is no governing party or police to lead the investigation process.

Women are also one of the groups most vulnerable to such unprecedented rates of poverty as they are supposed to be provided with hygiene products, but they are encountering difficulties with that. A lot of women are using pieces of old cloth instead of cotton pads, being unable to afford the high prices and also prevented from having the hygienic humanitarian aid.

Despite the fact that they might be targeted at any time, people decided to rebel against the high prices and closed the local markets for a few days in an attempt to reduce the unbelievably high prices of food, and thus stop famine from spreading to all Gaza Strip inhabitants. They feel like they are being exploited by merchants and humanitarian aid agencies. Well, my final thought here is this: should all of these forms of poverty be considered unfortunate by-products of war? Or are they an intentional war policy?

About the author:

I am an English language educator, Arabic <> English interpreter and a writer, driven by my passion to perfectly accomplish the assigned tasks. I am also a humanitarian who believes in the vitality of sustainable development in education and how effective social emotional learning can become when implemented appropriately. I have worked at various environments, private, governmental and UNRWA institutions, aspiring to provide inclusive quality education to all learners.

Photo

Photo is from AP News.

Edited by Gordon Weetman