GAZA, Jan 5 (NNN-XINHUA) – Ahmed Masoud, a Palestinian young man living in the Gaza Strip, is one of the volunteers helping to provide food and shelter for the thousands of displaced in the southern city of Rafah, in the war-torn coastal enclave.
“We need to provide about 5,000 meals daily, for the newly displaced families here,” the 26-year-old man told Xinhua. “They do not have any access to basic needs as they had just escaped from death and run into unknown fate, amid the ongoing Israeli attacks.”
Masoud, a displaced person himself, said, he came up with the idea three months ago when he and his family were forced to leave their home in Gaza City and relocated three times ever since.
“Whenever we are displaced to different places, we have suffered a lot until we manage our life. We barely can find food after five or six days … sometimes, we were forced to sleep in the streets without having any accommodations,” he recalled.
His suffering inspired him to help other displaced families. Masoud established a group, where he and 30 other young men contacted local businessmen, international organisations, and foreign donors, trying to get the needed funds for the displaced.
“Once we got the needed money, we started to cook and build temporary tents for our people,” Masoud said, adding that, “day by day, our project has been expanded and our contributors have increased.”
However, “we are still struggling to cover all the needy families, as the number of displaced families reaching Rafah is soaring,” the young man said.
Since Oct 7, Palestinians in the coastal enclave have been living under the bloody conflict between Hamas and the Israeli army, which has killed more than 22,000 Palestinians as of Tuesday, and wounded more than 57,000 others, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
The Zionist regime’s military offensive has displaced more than 1.9 million Palestinian people in Gaza, with a majority of them being squeezed into the small area in the southern border area, according to the Gaza government media office.
“Nearly 1.4 million of these displaced people were registered in 155 UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) facilities,” the UNRWA said.
However, “about 400,000 displaced people were forced to take refuge in their relatives’ homes or temporary tents,” Mohammed Nijim, another Palestinian young man, who works with Masoud, told Xinhua. “We are in the winter season and people need to live in suitable accommodations that could protect them from the cold.”
“So far, we have built about 20,000 tents and provided them for free for the displaced people,” he said. “We aim at building more and more tents for our people.”
Safaa Shihada, a woman from southern Khan Younis city, said, what these young men are doing is a “rescue boat” for her and her family during their displacement.
“Without such help, neither my family nor I would be able to deal with such a tragic situation, that has been imposed upon us,” the 39-year-old woman told Xinhua.– NNN-XINHUA
