Watan-The Al Jazeera correspondent, Galia Hamad, who is currently in Gaza, couldn’t hold back her tears when talking about the situation in the besieged Gaza Strip and the suffering of her children from war, the suffocating blockade, and the lack of basic necessities of life.
In words choked with pain, the Al Jazeera correspondent from Gaza said in her conversation with the Qatari channel: “Allow me to mention a situation between me and my husband a few days ago when we were looking at old war photos. There was a picture of my daughters eating grapes, as it’s their favorite fruit.”
She added, “The first thing we noticed in this picture (of the grapes) was not our daughters, but the grapes themselves… I said to him, we haven’t seen them for a long time, and my daughters constantly ask for them and for simple foods that are basic necessities that any household in the world can provide for children.”
The moment when the Al Jazeera correspondent burst into tears live
She continued, “But now, I face multiple simple requests from my daughters every day, ‘Mommy, we want apples, mommy, we want grapes…’ and I am forced to tell them, ‘Forget about fruits, forget about everything you used to have, today we are in a war.'”
In a moment of tears, the Al Jazeera correspondent continued, “I cannot adapt to this reality, but like all mothers in Gaza, I have to face it… but children cannot understand this equation we’re living in,” before bursting into tears, deeply affected by her children’s suffering.
كلمات تخنقها الدموع.. مراسلة #الجزيرة_مباشر غالية حمد تحكي معاناة الأمهات في قطاع #غزة #غزة_لحظة_بلحظة pic.twitter.com/hAQjNvLJyg
— الجزيرة مباشر (@ajmubasher) February 17, 2024
The journalist, present in Gaza, recounted her struggle with her daughter, addressing the Al Jazeera presenter: “Allow me to mention it, even though it may be far from the terms the world wants to hear.”
Mrs. Galia Hamad said, “As a representative of Gaza mothers since the beginning of the war, I have been facing continuous demands from my daughter, who used to be accustomed to me bringing her everything at the beginning of the season before everyone else, because I want to spoil her like any loving parent.”
She explained, “Since the beginning of the war, my daughter, after we left our house fleeing from the bombings several times before we were displaced to the southern governorates, forgot to take her shoes with her and suffered a lot when we also fled to the tents and she couldn’t find a pair of shoes to move around in.”
The Al Jazeera correspondent continued about her daughter, “She would borrow from the neighbors’ girls, and once a few days ago, she told me, ‘Mommy, I saw the girls in the street, they were looking at me because I don’t have shoes,’ and this incident deeply affected her and saddened me along with her.”
She pointed out that she used to tell her family before coming, “It’s sad that I dreamt and saw in a dream that I could buy her a pair.”
Gaza Strip Bombardment and Siege
It’s worth mentioning that on the 134th day of the Israeli war on Gaza, the Israeli occupation continues to target many areas in the Strip with bombardment, leaving dozens of martyrs and wounded, especially in the areas of Zawaida and Deir al-Balah.
It should be noted that since the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) won the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, the occupation has imposed a political and economic siege on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
This siege intensified on Gaza after the military decisiveness and Hamas’s sole control over the administration of the Strip, exiting from the governance scene in the occupied West Bank in 2007.