Gaza family documents their desperate search for food in a barren landscape

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• Amna Nawaz:

  Tonight, a senior Israeli official predicts Israel and Hamas will come to a cease-fire in the next week or two, a longer time frame than previously expected, but one that aligned with what President Trump also predicted today.

  An official with knowledge of the negotiations tells "PBS News Hour" there is one final sticking point, the amount of land in Gaza that Israel demands to control. Until that cease-fire can be reached, fighting goes on and Israel continues its airstrikes.

  Nick Schifrin looks now at what Gazans are enduring on an average day to try and find food and where some still see a measure of hope.

• Nick Schifrin:

  North of Gaza City, the daily, dispiriting and often deadly fight for food, for boxes, for bags, for anything, it brings out thousands of the desperate. But many leave empty-handed. The U.N. calls Gaza the hungriest place on Earth, and what's supposed to help them survive instead risks their lives.

  Nour Ashour, Mother of Six (through interpreter): Aid to us equals danger. If you want to go and try to get some aid, you are going to face death, bombing and shooting.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Nour Ashour shore has six children, including 3-year-old Tala (ph). They all live here in a single room in Al-Naser Street in Central Gaza. Their survival has been her daily struggle. She cooks on a makeshift stove, but has no source of food. So she's visited this site more than six miles away to try and find some.

• Nour Ashour (through interpreter):

  My children were starving in front of me. Before I'd leave to get aid, I'd say goodbye to my children and tell them that I'd either come back carrying something or someone would be carrying me.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Last week, instead, she lost what she was carrying. She had a miscarriage while trying to find food.

• Nour Ashour (through interpreter):

  I am trying to feed six people. I lost one child to save six children. Bombs were falling around us and there were gunshots. We were next to the tank and the shooting didn't stop. People were dying all around me. Body parts surrounded me. People's bodies were disfigured. The scenes were very tragic.

• Nick Schifrin:

  This aid is provided by and is supposed to be distributed by the United Arab Emirates. But Israel accuses the international community of providing food that is in part stolen by Hamas, allowing them to rearm.

  So Israel and the U.S. have created the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to distribute food inside Israeli military zones. That decision has been deadly. Gaza health authorities say more than 600 Gazans have been killed near GHF sites in the last six weeks.

  In the midst of this misery and destruction, a young Palestinian couple is documenting their days, past destroyed neighborhoods, but also showing a side of life in Gaza that we rarely get to see.

  Hadeel Sbakhi and Abdelrahman Abu Taqyia smile through the suffering.

• Abdelrahman Abu Taqyia, Gazan Video Blogger:

  We also suffer, but we wanted to make something positive about life in Gaza.

• Hadeel Sbakhi, Gazan Video Blogger:

  Yes.

• Abdelrahman Abu Taqyia:

  We can show you the bad circumstances here, but also we can show you the positive side of Gaza.

• Hadeel Sbakhi:

  Yes, the good vibes.

• Abdelrahman Abu Taqyia:

  And this was our coffee date.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Good vibes and couple goals.

• Abdelrahman Abu Taqyia:

  As always, she made me carry everything, including her hand, because she's just a girl.

• Abdelrahman Abu Taqyia AND Hadeel Sbakhi:

  Day two in a couple life in Gaza.

• Nick Schifrin:

  They post daily updates on Instagram and longer videos on YouTube showing an ordinary couple in extraordinary circumstances, a shared coffee, playtime with their cats, Luna (ph) and Zatar (ph), and sunset on the beach.

• Hadeel Sbakhi:

  See you tomorrow.

  On Instagram, yes. We love to make content about our daily life, our daily challenges in Gaza. We love to give people hope.

• Abdelrahman Abu Taqyia:

  We started as colleagues in the University of Palestine as English teachers. After one year of war, I decided to propose to Hadeel.

• Hadeel Sbakhi:

  Yes.

• Abdelrahman Abu Taqyia:

  And we got engaged and we got married, and we — but we didn't make any wedding.

• Hadeel Sbakhi:

  Yes.

• Abdelrahman Abu Taqyia:

  And now we're trying to prepare for a wedding.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Before becoming man and wife, the two were business partners, but they lost it all in the war.

• Hadeel Sbakhi:

  We lost both the two offices during the bombing…

• Abdelrahman Abu Taqyia:

  Yes.

• Hadeel Sbakhi:

  … the constant bombing. And we lost our laptops. They were burnt in our tent.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Life has been about survival, living under Israeli drones and gunfire. They fled from home to home, but the war has chased them.

• Hadeel Sbakhi:

  When we first evacuated from our home, we went to Al-Mawasi. And then, there, the IDF came there and they burnt our tent while we were inside of the tent. All of our stuff, all of our clothes, blankets, food, money, they were burnt in the tent.

  We had to run inside the fire, inside the gunshots, the bombing to evacuate to a safe place, as they say, but it's not safe place.

• Abdelrahman Abu Taqyia:

  Here we go again. Let's get some wheat to eat some bread.

• Nick Schifrin:

  And now the daily hunt for food also risks their safety.

• Abdelrahman Abu Taqyia:

  Two days ago,I went to get some free wheat. I got one, but I had to fight.

• Hadeel Sbakhi:

  Yes.

• Abdelrahman Abu Taqyia:

  Because there's more than 30,000 people there.

• Hadeel Sbakhi:

  They are all hungry.

• Abdelrahman Abu Taqyia:

  They are all hungry.

• Hadeel Sbakhi:

  They all need wheat.

• Abdelrahman Abu Taqyia:

  Yes. Yes.

• Hadeel Sbakhi:

  And, by the way, this is a danger place.

• Abdelrahman Abu Taqyia:

  Yes.

• Hadeel Sbakhi:

  This is an evacuation area.

• Abdelrahman Abu Taqyia:

  At any time there, you will be bombed, at any time.

• Hadeel Sbakhi:

  Yes.

• Abdelrahman Abu Taqyia:

  Yesterday, I went to get some food also. They bombed the area that I was sitting in.

  Look what I have got for free. My work needs to be replaced.

  Everything is so hard. You have every day to go to find some water to drink, and it's not clean. And you have to get some wood to light the fire, because you want to cook your food because there is no gas.

• Hadeel Sbakhi:

  Yes. Yes.

• Abdelrahman Abu Taqyia:

  There is — yes. And one more thing is, transportation is really hard, walking in the sun every day.

• Nick Schifrin:

  What keeps them going is their faith in God, in a cease-fire, in their followers.

• Hadeel Sbakhi:

  Their messages, they always tell us that, we are here for you. We are talking about Palestine. We didn't let you alone.

  All of this gives us the power to wake up in the morning and film another video.

• Abdelrahman Abu Taqyia:

  What keeps us strong is our relationship with Allah. He gives us the strength. We have to be hopeful about that one day the truce will come. We have been waiting for two years nearly for a truce.

• Hadeel Sbakhi:

  Yes.

• Abdelrahman Abu Taqyia:

  And we still have hope.

• Nick Schifrin:

  But the war goes on, this strike on an old market in Gaza City today. And until negotiators can reach that truce, hope feels distant and a better day remains obscured.

  For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Nick Schifrin.

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