Aid worker describes life in Gaza amid constant bombardment

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• Amna Nawaz:

  Gaza's humanitarian crisis becomes more dire with every passing moment. With constant bombardment and dwindling supplies, it's a struggle to find fuel, food, and even water.

  Before communication lines went dark, I spoke with Yousef Hammash yesterday, who works for the Norwegian Refugee Council, an aid group in Gaza, about life in the besieged territory for him and his family.

• Yousef Hammash, Norwegian Refugee Council:

  It's like we're literally living in a horror movie. It's horrific situation. This killing machine doesn't stop.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Yousef Hammash is the Gaza advocacy officer for the Norwegian Refugee Council. A former journalist, he's been documenting this war for the last three weeks. He moved his family of four, including his kids, 5-year-old Elia and 3-year-old Ahmad, to Southern Gaza, taking shelter in Khan Yunis.

  With limited connectivity and power, he could only speak to me via phone.

• Yousef Hammash:

  In spite of all the bombardment and all the violence, we have a lot of responsibility to our families and children, so we have to find a way every day to manage to find bread and water.

  So, the most challenge is water.

• Amna Nawaz:

  If you needed water right now, what would you do?

• Yousef Hammash:

  I will give you an example.

  We had the water two days ago, but we needed the fuel to push the water up to the house, and I couldn't find it. And this mission takes me five hours. Everything is almost impossible.

• Amna Nawaz:

  So, five hours just to try to get water for your family on one day?

• Yousef Hammash:

  Yes, five hours to push the water to the house. I had to buy water through other private sources. We have more than 30 people in one apartment. Now we take showers once a week. We wash our face once a day.

  We consume less, because we want to make it last more. We are trying to protect our children. And the water is the one essential thing for that.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Yousef, what do you tell your children about what's going on?

• Yousef Hammash:

  Elia, she's 5 years old. She understands the bombing. She understands what's going on.

  But with Ahmad, who's 2 years old, sometimes, I try to convince him it's raining, it's from the sky, or this is fireworks.

  It's not only the sound of the bombing. It's also you feel that it's an earthquake.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Yousef, if you don't mind my asking, how are you doing?

• Yousef Hammash:

  I don't think about me.

  But I don't think there is a psychosocial support method in this planet will help us to recover from what we have seen here. And my children, when there's a rocket or bombing around us, they run towards me, just hiding me, or crying.

  I feel a useless father. Extremely awful situation when you feel that you are useless as a father in front of your children, and you cannot even protect them and keep them safe.

  Joe Biden, President of the United States: I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth.

• Amna Nawaz:

  I'm sure you have seen the headlines. President Biden said this to my colleague that they have reasons to doubt the death toll as reported by the Gaza Health Ministry, because it is run by Hamas.

  I just wonder what you think about that.

• Yousef Hammash:

  It's not acceptable that they are arguing about the number of people who were killed.

  And, trust me, this number is not accurate, because it's way more. We have more than 1,500 people missing under the rubble. So, this number if not accurate because it doesn't mean that people are less. It's way more.

  All across the Gaza Strip, the bombardment doesn't stop. And you don't know when you are next. And every night, when we sleep, we pray that we will see the daylight again. So, every day, we wake up, OK, we survived. Lucky. We have another day to live.