‘We now not have the energy to endure the hardships of life and the agony of famine,’ I wrote on Facebook, ‘and I is not going to wait for my children to die before my eyes attributable to hunger.’
That is how I announced I used to be offering to trade my camera – my livelihood as a journalist in Gaza – for a sack of flour.
It felt like my soul was being torn from my body.
My heart was breaking, but I couldn’t bear to look at my seven children – all under the age of 19 – starve, so I felt like I had no other option.
I became a journalist in 2010 and I started off covering public meetings, seminars, sports matches, and community events. I used to be drawn to stories about people; their struggles, their achievements, their quiet resilience.
In those early days, I didn’t have a camera, but it surely was my dream to own one. So I saved up for a complete yr, sacrificing a lot.
But finally, I did. It cost 2,700 shekels (around £600) but it surely was defective and had a broken lens. In time, I replaced it with a Canon D80, which I’ve needed to today.
That camera became my companion, my third eye that saw Gaza and showed it to the world. I documented weddings and funerals, political events, and moments of on a regular basis life.
After having my very own Facebook page since 2011, I launched one other one in 2017 that shares images and videos showing our neighbourhood and traditions. Through the camera lens, I attempted to advertise peace, awareness, and the values I consider hold our community together.
The latter Facebook page has since grown to 67,000 followers. But over the past 20 months, as I documented the newest war on Gaza, my camera captured something else entirely: devastation.
I filmed entire neighbourhoods reduced to rubble, the suffering of youngsters, and the anguish of displaced families. Recently, the page has served as a platform, not just for people to look for things lost in bombings or displacement, but additionally to search for missing children and family members.
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On one occasion, an autistic child was found wandering around. A bunch of us cared for him and published an image on the Facebook page that I hoped would reach his family, since I didn’t know who they were.
Later that day, the family saw the post and was in a position to come and so they were safely reunited. Lost children are sometimes returned to their families because of the page and it brings me happiness in these dark times.
Devastatingly, my home was bombed and destroyed in January this yr during a strike that killed six children – my nieces and nephews – and injured each my two-year-old son Rayan and me.
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To make matters worse, I lost all my journalism equipment, except my one camera – my only source of income.
Despite two injuries, one to my head and the opposite to my leg, I kept working. I continued to report, often without protective gear or basic equipment.
Many international journalists left Gaza and recent ones weren’t allowed in. We worked facing the bombing, the hunger, and the despair, with only our cameras and our courage.
Then one morning two weeks ago, I woke to the sound of my youngest, Rayan, crying from hunger. His mother had no bread to present him. That moment shattered me.
My daughter, Rama, who suffers from a chronic illness called hypocalcemia (a scarcity of calcium in her blood), was also getting weaker from malnutrition.
I felt helpless. So I asked myself: what good is a camera after I can’t feed my very own child? What’s using documenting hunger if I too am ravenous?
So I made the offer via Facebook to trade it for a bag of flour. I used to be desperate.
Then something remarkable happened. As people saw my post – strangers, friends, and colleagues – they rejected my offer and as an alternative wrote with messages of support.
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Other journalists shared my post and so they told others to refuse, with some saying: ‘The tool that was meant to convey the reality has been reduced to nothing greater than a sack of flour’ and ‘You deserve a lifetime of ease and luxury for the remarkable work you have got done to uplift the community’. They jogged my memory I used to be not alone.
And so until now, the trade has not happened. Not because I modified my mind, but because others couldn’t bear to see me hand over my voice as someone who shows the world what we in Gaza reside through.
And so I remain, still hungry, still struggling to take care of my children, but still holding my camera. I’ve needed to borrow money from friends for flour to feed my children, but the cash is running out and there is sort of nothing left.
As I write this, famine continues to spread in Gaza. Markets are empty. Our bodies are weak. And even when Israel allows a trickle of aid in, we’re desperate.
None of us, not me, my children, or our neighbours, have eaten bread in days. We stagger through our workdays, documenting the pain of others, only to return home to the identical hunger.
I don’t know what the long run holds for me and my family. On daily basis, we wake not knowing whether we’ll survive.
But I do know this: I’m a journalist. I’ll proceed to inform the reality, even when I need to do it with a pen as an alternative of a lens.
I’m not the one journalist ravenous in Gaza. I’ve been injured and lost family, my home, and equipment. I’ve nearly lost hope. But I even have not lost my sense of duty.
We’re being suffocated by siege, starvation, displacement, bombing, and exile. These are the weapons used against civilians in Gaza. And while the world watches, we’re running out of time.
There are around 2 million people in Gaza – and we’re ravenous. Please, help us before it is simply too late.
Do you have got a story you’d prefer to share? Get in contact by emailing James.Besanvalle@metro.co.uk.
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