NHS doctor says family’s situation in Gaza has worsened despite ceasefire
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
A Palestinian doctor in the UK said Israel must allow more aid and water into Gaza following the four-day ceasefire with Hamas.
The pause in the conflict began on Friday morning, with Hamas releasing 24 of the about 240 hostages taken during its October 7 attack on Israel, while Israel freed 39 Palestinians from prison.
Dr Hazem Alaaraj, 46, of Cheshire, said water was becoming scarce for his mother Ayesha Alaaraj, 70, and father Dr Ibrahim Alaaraj, 77, who live in a compound with more than 60 other close family members in the southern city of Rafah.
Mr Alaaraj, who was raised in Gaza and left in 1995, told the PA news agency: “As you can imagine the situation is not good at all… in the recent couple of weeks things have gotten quite worse, at the moment people are coping.
“There is a scarcity of water now, there’s less and less tap water so they have to buy a (water) tanker, and over the past month, they need a tanker every two days.
“Over the past two weeks or so it has become very difficult to get hold of some water, my brother had to queue for hours for drinking water.”
Since the start of the conflict, Mr Alaaraj said some of his family have died and had their homes either damaged or destroyed by missiles.
You get yourself in this cycle of watching the news over and over, and I ring them every day, sometimes twice a day
He added lack of food has again become a problem as there are “no supplies coming” in.
“There are a few trucks coming in here and there and the number of trucks that are carrying food supplies is very small,” he said.
“I understood Gaza used to take in about five to 700 trucks a day, normally for supplies, but during this period (ceasefire) they’ll (Israel) only be allowing very small numbers, 20 or 30 per day.
“We are talking about a four-day ceasefire. You might have water these four days, but then again it depends if Israel allows more resources after, if it doesn’t I think the problem will continue.”
He said he constantly worries about his family’s safety as Israel “heavily” bombed the south – the same region where Palestinians in the north of Gaza were told to flee for safety.
He said: “You get yourself in this cycle of watching the news over and over, and I ring them every day, sometimes twice a day.
“I had occasions where they’re sick of you ringing so I look at their Facebook status to see if it’s green, then I know they are okay, if not I just message them ‘I hope you’re okay’, to make sure someone is replying to me.”
Mr Alaaraj said he hopes that the UK Government will create an asylum-seeking programme similar to the Homes for Ukraine scheme so he can reunite with his family.
