Shadi al-Kurd

A 42-year-old father of five and resident of Jabalia R.C., Shadi recounted how he endangers his life everyday in order to provide food for his family.

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Up until two months ago, I lived with my wife ‘Aishah Mansur, 34, and our five children–Ahmad, 15, Muhammad, 13, Mahmood, 11, Khaled, 5, and Fatma, 4–in Jabalia R.C. On 18 March 2025, the war resumed and the situation in our area got worse. We held on for about a month, and then we left our house and moved to the western part of Gaza City. We rented an apartment there together with my sister, my brother Hassan–whose wife and children moved to the home of her relatives–and my uncle. To this day, we’re all in that apartment.

Throughout the entire war we’ve suffered from a lack of food, but over the last three months–since Israel began prohibiting the entrance of aid to the Strip–the situation has become especially difficult. Basic food items have disappeared from the markets, and I can’t afford the things that are available. Tomatoes cost 60 NIS [~$18 USD] per kilo [2.2 lbs], flour costs 90 NIS [~$27 USD], potatoes cost more than 100 NIS [~$30 USD], a bottle of tahini costs 100 NIS, one medium onion–when it’s to be found–costs 50 NIS [~$15 USD]–and a garlic clove costs 8 NIS [$2 USD].

We mostly eat lentils because I stored a lot ahead of time. We have one meal a day. If the kids are hungry, we give them a pita with salt. There’s no cooking gas, so I buy a kilo of wood for burning for 6 NIS [~$1.8 USD], and that is barely enough to cook one meal. I’ve started collecting plastic and paper for the cooking fire. There’s no sugar, and we haven’t had tea in a month-and-a-half.

I’ve also started going to the food distribution sites in a-Nabulsi Square to get food for my family. Usually I go at dawn, around 4:30 A.M., when the trucks arrive. The aid doesn’t come everyday. When it does, they normally hand out sacks of flour.

I walk approximately 4 kilometers [~2.5 mi] to get there. Sometimes I manage to get a sack of 25 kilos [~55 lbs], and other times I’m not able to get anything. Thousands of people show up and sometimes only seven aid trucks come, it’s not enough. Everyone pushes each other and only a small percentage succeeds in getting to the trucks–the strong ones get the aid. There are also armed gangs that come in a car, fire into the air, frighten everyone and get many sacks that way.

The trucks are supposed to come to a-Nabulsi Square from Netzarim, but people wait for them a few hundred meters from Netzarim, block their path and pounce on them, and then the soldiers start firing at them. People get hurt and some have been killed. Despite the shooting, there are no ambulances in that area.

Usually I go with a friend, or sometimes take my eldest son, Ahmad, 15, with me so that they can protect me while I carry the sack. When I get tired, I rest for 10 minutes, holding a knife the whole time because I’m scared that thugs will try to steal the flour from me. It’s happened to a lot of people.

From a 25-kilo sack of flour I can make about 300 pitas. We need 30 pitas per day, so we only eat one meal per day so that the sack will lack 10 to 15 days. Under normal circumstances, the sack would last just one week.

In May, when they started opening the aid distribution sites, I started going there too, to Netzarim. The place is surrounded by sand dunes and mech fences. People get there the night before and wait. Thousands of people turn up in search of aid. There are tanks and soldiers in the area that fire at us. People sit there on the sand–some light bonfires and others sleep. Then suddenly there’s shooting from guns or artillery fire. We crawl so as to not be hit. We’re not protected there and sometimes shells fall right next to us. It’s terrifying.

At dawn, the army flies drones with loudspeakers that announce that we can move forward. Within seconds, thousands of people start running towards the distribution site. There’s also a crane with bulbs like a traffic light–if the light shines red we need to stop; if it’s green we can move. Because of how hungry people are, they try to move forward before the light turns green, and then the shooting starts.

We run 2-3 kilometers [~1.2-2 miles] to the distribution site, and get to the yard where there are piles of cardboard boxes. Each person takes what they can. It’s utter chaos. Everyone defends their box.

In the boxes there’s canned chickpeas or beans, sugar, chocolate, cooking oil and dried chickpeas. There are maybe 10 platforms to take from and thousands of people so it’s all gone in minutes. Then the army starts shooting towards the crowd. There are always casualties and injuries.

I make sure to bring a knife with me for self-defense, and when I succeed in getting some food, I run, distance myself from the shooting, and look for a place to rest until I can get back to our apartment in western Gaza City.

Two days ago I went to Zikim in the north of the Strip. They hand out sacks of flour there, too. There were thousands of people. The tanks were firing heavily and there were many casualties who were mostly hit in the head. I ran with the sack of flour on my shoulder, passing injured people and bodies. Some of the injured were dying but no one could help them.

Those that came with a relative that got injured managed to evacuate them. But the people killed were left behind, because the firing was very intense and everyone fled, terrified, with whatever they were able to get. I saw three bodies and one guy who was hit in the head but was still breathing. A few people put him on a wooden platform and carried him for at least two kilometers. I then parted with them and went in a different direction.

I go to the distribution sites almost everyday–sometimes to Netzarim, other times to Zikim, and others to a-Nabulsi. When I leave the apartment , I part from my wife and children as if for the last time. Going there is going to die. I might come back, I might not. There, I look death in the eyes. The army turned the aid distribution centers into death traps.

I risk my life to give my children food because I don’t have money to buy it in the market. There are hardly any products in the market, and what is available is insanely expensive. Our lives have turned into a daily struggle to survive. Every day I am exposed to death, but I have no choice. Otherwise, we’ll starve to death.

* Testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Khaled ‘Azayzeh on 19 June 2025