In Gaza City, families living in tents reveal a shared and dark reality.

Many have been forced to flee the fights of tens of times. Most are homeless and hungry while facing an uncertain future.

Khadija Manoun: Kitchen of the remains of life

Khadija Manoun said that she and her family had moved more than 20 times, from Jabalia in the north of the Gaza Strip in a building destroyed in west of Gaza, in search of a shelter. She had had a new fully furnished house, which she had built with a bank loan.

“I provided my house well, with tiles and electrical devices,” she said. “It’s been only three years since I had the house. Then the war came and everything was lost. ”

Today, everything has changed, said Ms. Manoun. Its spacious and fully equipped kitchen is now just a corner in the rubble, where a lonely soap dish borrowed from a neighbor is seated. Metal utensils have been replaced by plastic tea containers to serve 10 people.

The bathroom was reduced to a corner covered with pieces of fabric that had been blankets. His dressing room is now home to shreds.

“It is now my closet where I put everything,” she said. “I had a room that cost me 10,000 shekels.”

His family sleeps on simple mattresses. Drinking water is a luxury Khadija pursues, flowing between trucks, often returning with empty containers.

In the middle of all this, she sometimes remembers, scrolling the photos on her mobile phone from her old house and the meals they ate.

Badriya Barawi: exhausted by hunger

In his modest tent on the beach west of Gaza City, Badriya Barawi, Beit Lahia, is, arranging what remains of her life. Tears flow from his eyes.

“Have mercy on us,” she said. “We are fed up and exhausted, mentally and physically. We can no longer bear it. How long will this life continue? ”

She says her children cry from heat and hunger.

“We haven’t had bread for three days. This morning, I nourished children’s hummus, but is it enough for their stomach? said Ms. Barawi, who suffers from high blood pressure and diabetes.

She said she collapses daily for lack of food.

Hiyam Zayed: Garden of Broken Dreams

In a neighboring tent, Hiyam Zayed and his eight daughters eat a lens soup without bread. Describing her old house, she said there were six bedrooms and a garden.

“I was happy with me,” she said. “My daughters and I am amused there. They played on the roof or inside the rooms. We had a beautiful garden in front of the house, and we cultivated plants and ate its products and raised with chickens. My daughters were very happy. We have nourished the best food and dressed them in the best clothes. ”

She also said that she had a washing machine, a fully equipped kitchen and a “goodie” refrigerator.

Now everything has gone.

“No food, no washing machine, no feelings: we have become depressed,” she added.

“My daughters wear the worst clothes. I can’t find a way to bathe them. I used to light the water tap at home and the water would run to drink or bathe. Now we live in a tent in the sand. I light a fire to cook after getting used to gas. I borrow utensils. “

“How do we want to blame what happened and who is responsible?” Ms. Zayed asked. “What is my fault and the fault of my children when we move from one place to another and they die of hunger?”

Mass displacement

According to UN reports, more than two million Palestinians – the population of Gaza – live in around 15% of the strip area after the war, the general destruction of infrastructure and houses.

International organizations have warned that the continuation of the conflict is threatening to have short -term “catastrophic consequences”.

This includes a serious impact on the mental and physical health of children, the spread of the disease and the disintegration of social structures.

This in the midst of the absence of any clear path towards a political or humanitarian solution.

It is according to a new report of United Nations Convention to Fight Desertification (UNCCD), the National Center for US National Dryness (NDMC) and the International alliance of resilience of drought On the global impacts of droughts from 2023 to 2025.

“Drought is a silent killer. He slips, drains the resources and devastates lives in slow motion. His scars are deep, “said UNCD executive secretary Ibrahim Thiaw.

“This is not a period of drought,” said Dr. Mark Svoboda, co-author and director of NDMC. “This is a global disaster with slow evolution, the worst that I have ever seen. This report underlines the need for systematic monitoring of the way in which drought affects the lives, livelihoods and the health of the ecosystems on which we all depend. ”

Record devastation in Africa

According to the report, while 90 million people face acute hunger across East and South Africa, certain regions of the region have experienced the worst drought ever recorded.

In Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi, corn and wheat crops have undergone repeated failures. In Zimbabwe, in particular, the 2024 corn harvest fell 70% in the year, corn prices have doubled and 9,000 cattle died of thirst and famine.

Some 43,000 people in Somalia died in 2022 only due to the hunger linked to drought. The crisis continued until 2025, with a quarter of the population in the face of food insecurity in terms of the crisis at the start of the year.

Following the drought, Zambia suffers from one of the worst energy crises in the world: in April, the Zambezi river fell to 20% of its long -term average, and the country’s largest hydroelectric factory, the Kariba barrier, fell to 7% production capacity, causing a characteristic of electricity that can go up to 21 hours a day. This led to closing hospitals, bakeries and factories, further aggravating devastation.

World impacts

But the effects of drought extend beyond Africa. For example, by September 2023 in Spain, two years of drought and record heat caused a 50% drop in olive harvest, doubling the prices of olive oil nationwide.

In Türkiye, the exhaustion of the groundwater accelerated by the drought has triggered chasms, by endangering communities and their infrastructure while reducing the storage capacity of aquifers.

In the Amazon basin, record river levels in 2023 and 2024 led to the death of fish and endangered dolphins, disturbed the supply of drinking water and created transport challenges for hundreds of thousands. Deforestation and current fires also threaten to move the Amazon from a carbon well to a carbon source.

The drop in water levels in the Panama Canal has reduced the transit by more than a third, resulting in major global trade disturbances. Among the overflowing effects were the drop in American exports and shortages of soybeans and the price increase in British grocery stores.

Call for cooperation and solutions

The report has listed several recommendations to help fight this crisis, including stronger early alert systems, surveillance of drought in real time and impact on drought, and nature -based solutions such as the restoration of watersheds and the use of Aboriginal crops.

He also called for more resilient infrastructure – including out -of -network energy and alternative water supply systems – and global cooperation, in particular with regard to cross -border river basins and commercial roads.

In an alert, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWAhas relayed desperate testimonies of his colleagues who also find it difficult to survive in the enclave torn by the war.

“We are in the death phase,” said an UNRWA worker. “” All around people at the moment is death, whether bombs or strikes, wasting children Before their eyes malnutrition, dehydration and death. »»

Doctors and nurses who continue to work in clinics and medical centers of the United Nations Agency “Watch the children disappear and die before their eyes, and there is absolutely nothing that they can do it, ” The worker continued.

The civilians faced the sniper and the tank-tire ‘

Development comes after desperate Gazans looking for aid were criticized on weekends “Israeli tanks, elite shooters and other shots”, According to the United Nations World Food Program (Wfp).

In a detail statement After the incident on Sunday, July 20, he explained that a truck convoy of 25 trucks had crossed the border point of Zikim in the north of Gaza “intended for hungry communities”.

Shortly after having successfully completed the final checkpoint after Zikim’s crossing point, the convoy met large crowds of civilians while waiting to access food supplies. It was then that the shooting started, leaving “countless” “dead” gasans, WFP said, echoing the reports of the health authorities.

Convicing the incident, WFP noted that the victims “simply tried to access food to feed themselves and their families on the verge of famine”.

The United Nations agency said violence had occurred “Despite the insurance of the Israeli authorities that humanitarian operational conditions would improve; Including that the armed forces will not be present or will engage at any stage along the humanitarian convoy roads. »»

Without such fundamental guarantees, it will not be possible to continue to provide vital support through the Gaza Strip, said WPF, its reaction one day after 36 people asking for help were killed near a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation Center led by the Israelis and the United States in the southern band.

Evacuation shock Deir al-Balah

In the Central Gaza, Deir al-Balah, 50,000 to 80,000 people were affected by a mass movement order emitted by the Israeli army-the first since the war broke out on October 7, 2023.

“The new order crosses Deir al-Balah to the Mediterranean Sea, more exploding the band”, Ochha said. “This will limit the capacity of the UN and our partners to move safely and effectively in Gaza, suffocating humanitarian access when necessary. “”

The UN staff remain in Deir Al-Balah in “dozens of premises” whose contact details were shared with the parties at war. “These locations – as for all civil sites – must be protected, whatever the travel orders,” insisted OCHA, because the Israeli tanks have moved to the southern and east regions of the city.

According to information, this may be there that some of the remaining hostages seized in terrorist attacks led by Hamas on October 7, 2023 in Israel can still be held.

Gaza cuts in half

The last evacuation order means that almost 88% Gaza is assigned by travel orders or is located in the Israeli-militarized areas. Some 2.1 million civilians who have been uprooted on several occasions are now pressed in the remaining space, where the essential services have collapsed.

“There is nowhere [Gazans] escape. They are trapped, “said Louise Waterridge, head of UNRWA senior emergencies.” They cannot leave the Gaza Strip. They try to keep their children alive. They try to keep themselves alive.

In the comments of UN NewsThe veteran humanitarian has explained that no food is available and only very limited water, explaining why so many desperate Gazans are likely that their lives have come to the help of the few distribution centers and still operational arrival points.

“The children are unwelcome, they are dehydrated, they die in front of their [parents’] eyes, “continued Ms. Waterridge.” Bombs and strikes continue; There is no way to run, there is nowhere to hide. There is no way to escape there.

In a statement Released on July 19, Monusco declared that the declaration of principles, signed in Doha under the mediation of Qatar, “reflects the determination of the parties to prioritize peaceful means, to establish a cease-fire and to set up a joint mechanism to define its practical implementation.”

“This important declaration marks a change towards the relaxation of tensions and the protection of civilians seriously affected by the conflict,” said Mr. Bruno Lemarquis, special deputy representative of the UN Secretary General in the chief of the DRC and at the head of Monusco. “We congratulate the commitments made and call their implementation in a timely and good faith.”

These commitments include measures to facilitate the voluntary, safe and worthy return of people and refugees displaced internally to their places or countries of origin, and the encouragement of inclusive dialogue, considered vital to combat the deep causes of the conflict and achieve lasting peace.

Earlier this year, the M23 launched an offensive in the provinces of northern and southern Kivu, capturing cities and villages, including the provincial capitals Goma and Bukavu. Thousands of civilians have been killed, hundreds of thousands of others have been moved and serious human rights violations have been committed.

The declaration of principles comes less than a month after a peace agreement Signed by the Congo and Rwanda, long -accused by the Congolese government of supporting the M23.

The declaration of the mission underlined the emphasis made by the declaration on civil protection and support for the ceasefire, with the help of Monusco and other partners, and reaffirmed its desire to support the cessation of hostilities, in particular thanks to the creation of a credible and convenient verification mechanism.

Monusco’s declaration concluded by exhorting all the parties to honor their commitments, to act in good faith throughout the process and to prioritize human rights, security and aspirations of the Congolese people in all decisions.