My family are starving – so I made a desperate offer via Facebook

‘We no longer have the energy to endure the hardships of life and the agony of famine,’ I wrote on Facebook, ‘and I will not wait for my children to die before my eyes due to hunger.’

This is how I announced I was 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 could not bear to watch 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 out covering public meetings, seminars, sports matches, and community events. I was drawn to stories about people; their struggles, their achievements, their quiet resilience.

In those early days, I didn’t have a camera, but it was my dream to own one. So I saved up for a whole year, sacrificing so much.

But finally, I did. It cost 2,700 shekels (around £600) but it was defective and had a broken lens. In time, I replaced it with a Canon D80, which I’ve had to this day.

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 everyday life.

After having my own Facebook page since 2011, I launched another one in 2017 that shares images and videos showing our neighbourhood and traditions. Through the camera lens, I tried to promote peace, awareness, and the values I believe 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 latest war on Gaza, my camera captured something else entirely: devastation.

I filmed entire neighbourhoods reduced to rubble, the suffering of children, and the anguish of displaced families. Recently, the page has served as a platform, not only for people to search for things lost in bombings or displacement, but also to look for missing children and loved ones.

On one occasion, an autistic child was found wandering around. A group of us cared for him and published a picture 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 able to come and they were safely reunited. Lost children are often returned to their families thanks to the page and it brings me happiness in these dark times. 

Devastatingly, my home was bombed and destroyed in January this year during a strike that killed six children – my nieces and nephews – and injured both my two-year-old son Rayan and me.

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 other to my leg, I kept working. I continued to report, often without protective gear or basic equipment.

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Many international journalists left Gaza and new 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 give him. That moment shattered me.

My daughter, Rama, who suffers from a chronic illness called hypocalcemia (a lack of calcium in her blood), was also getting weaker from malnutrition.

I felt helpless. So I asked myself: what good is a camera when I can’t feed my own child? What’s the use of documenting hunger if I too am starving?

So I made the offer via Facebook to trade it for a bag of flour. I was desperate.

Then something remarkable happened. As people saw my post – strangers, friends, and colleagues – they rejected my offer and instead wrote with messages of support. 

Other journalists shared my post and they told others to refuse, with some saying: ‘The tool that was meant to convey the truth has been reduced to nothing more than a sack of flour’ and ‘You deserve a life of ease and comfort for the remarkable work you have done to uplift the community’. They reminded me I was not alone. 

And so until now, the trade has not happened. Not because I changed my mind, but because others couldn’t bear to see me give up my voice as someone who shows the world what we in Gaza are living through.

And so I remain, still hungry, still struggling to care for my children, but still holding my camera. I’ve had to borrow money from friends for flour to feed my children, but the money is running out and there is almost nothing left. 

As I write this, famine continues to spread in Gaza. Markets are empty. Our bodies are weak. And even if Israel allows a trickle of aid in, we are 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 same hunger.

I don’t know what the future holds for me and my family. Every day, we wake not knowing whether we will survive.

But I do know this: I am a journalist. I will continue to tell the truth, even if I must do it with a pen instead of a lens.

I am not the only journalist starving in Gaza. I’ve been injured and lost family, my home, and equipment. I’ve nearly lost hope. But I have not lost my sense of duty.

We are being suffocated by siege, starvation, displacement, bombing, and exile. These are the weapons used against civilians in Gaza. And while the world watches, we are running out of time. 

There are around 2 million people in Gaza – and we’re starving. Please, help us before it is too late.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing James.Besanvalle@metro.co.uk. 

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