'Dying but breathing': Gaza residents grow increasingly desperate
Food, electricity, medical supplies dwindling as Israel cuts off Gaza Strip in retaliation for Hamas attack
Family and friends of people living in Gaza say they remain trapped under worsening conditions with only sporadic means of communicating with the outside world as Israel continues to blanket the area with airstrikes in retaliation for the Hamas attacks that left more than 1,200 Israelis dead.
Bushra Khalidi, who works for Oxfam Canada in Ramallah in the West Bank, told CBC News on Thursday that Gaza residents are facing growing hardship and uncertainty after the territory's only power plant ran out of fuel and shut down Wednesday.
Reaching family in Gaza often means anxiously waiting for replies on cellphone messaging apps.
"We've been desperately waiting for the blue ticks on WhatsApp because it means that their phone is on, and we can assume that probably they're alive," Khalidi said.
She said she has two nephews in Gaza who are very young and have lived their entire lives under the Israeli blockade that began in 2007 as the Islamist group Hamas consolidated its control of the territory.
On Monday, Israel announced a complete siege of Gaza, cutting off supply routes for essentials such as fuel and food.
"Since yesterday afternoon, the power plant shut down at 2 p.m., meaning there's no electricity, there's no water, no phone lines, there's no internet," Khalidi said.
"Those that do have a little internet or electricity have private generators that they're refuelling themselves with fuel supplies they probably had before this started."
The total blockade was imposed after Hamas's conflict with Israel suddenly intensified early Saturday as militants fired thousands of rockets from Gaza and sent fighters into southern Israel.
As of Thursday afternoon, Israel's military said the attacks by Hamas have killed more than 1,200 people. The Gaza Ministry of Health said more than 1,500 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes.
Isam Hammad, a Gaza resident and self-described peace activist, said the airstrikes have been "something unbelievable" even for a territory whose inhabitants have been "in a pressure cooker since 2007" because of Israel's blockade, with poverty and high unemployment.
"All the borders are blocked," Hammad said. "This is the situation: it's dying but breathing. And with 2.2 million people, what do you expect from them?"
'Nobody can leave'
Khalidi said the siege is affecting everyone.
"Nobody can leave Gaza. Nobody," Khalidi said. "There are international workers stuck in Gaza ... and it's a complete military war zone."
Israel says the siege will continue until Hamas releases the roughly 150 people who were taken hostage during the attack.
Dr. Hammam Alloh, an internal medicine physician in Gaza City, said Israel's blockade means doctors must constantly manage shortages of drugs, blood products, water and power.
He said the clinic where he works has set aside medication for one to two weeks for patients who need a continuous supply, and patients are afraid they won't get what they need.
"There are lot of patients who need to be seen at the clinic, but I can't see them all, so I try to treat them by phone," he said.
In addition, Alloh is struggling to look after elderly patients, his wife and their three children, ages five, four and four months old. He said he's been trying to reassure his older two children and keep them busy, playing games.
"I keep telling them there are clashes, problems, but they'll be fine ... and that the explosions might stop."
'I refuse to think about'
Reem Sultan in London, Ont., was able to reach her nephew in Gaza by phone on Wednesday and the call left her feeling "very distraught." He told her, "The bombing is happening everywhere."
Sultan visited relatives in Gaza just last year. The family has been scarred by war even before this most recent explosion of violence. Sultan's uncle was killed in an airstrike in a previous wave of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
"I refuse to think about it. I can't take any more," she said when asked if she wonders what will happen if the Israeli military launches a ground offensive.
Canadian Asia Mathkour, who has lived in Gaza with her family since 2014, told CBC News that just getting from one place to another in the territory is fraught with danger. She said she would take the first flight home, but there's no way out of Gaza.
"Everything is demolished, every block, every neighbourhood, so I don't know how they will be able to take us out," she said on Wednesday.
She said she hopes officials in Canada won't leave her stranded much longer.
The mother of two and her family moved to a hotel after her home in Gaza was bombed, but now, the hotel is also no longer liveable because of airstrikes.
"My neighbourhood is all destroyed," she said. "We are just waiting, to be honest, to be heard, to be seen.
"Right now there is no way we can leave Gaza."
Mathkour was overcome with anxiety while talking to the CBC and had to pause because she thought she heard warships firing at Gaza.
On Wednesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said Canadian military flights will be arriving in Tel Aviv by the end of this week to evacuate Canadians from Israel to Athens.
The government has said it is working to find a way to get Canadians who can't make it to Tel Aviv out of Gaza and the West Bank, possibly through Jordan.
