Updated April 30, 2025 at 3:21 PM EDT
For nearly two months, Israel has not allowed any food, fuel or medical supplies to enter Gaza. Aid groups operating in the region, including the United Nations World Food Programme, say they have depleted their stock of goods to distribute. Markets are running dry, despite truckloads of aid waiting at the border, ready to be received by the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza succumbing to malnutrition and disease.
Mohammed Hatem, a young man in Gaza who is struggling to feed his family, said it’s frustrating to know that help is so near yet inaccessible to him and others in need.
“It’s honestly outrageous and it’s just infuriating,” Hatem said. “We are only a few kilometers away from these supplies, yet none of us can put a hand on it, and it’s just waiting there.”
Israel says it’s withholding aid to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages, but at the International Court of Justice this week, dozens of countries and rights groups are arguing that Israel’s actions are a violation of international law and amount to collective punishment.
5 questions with Mohammed Hatem
What’s happened since the last time we spoke with you in March, when Israel had just resumed airstrikes after they broke the temporary ceasefire?
“A lot has been happening, especially with the situation with nutrition and food. The blockade [has been] going on for two months now, as well as a lot of bombings and evacuations in the area. Multiple areas in my neighborhood were targeted almost two weeks to a month ago.
“We woke up at around 6 a.m., or like 5 a.m., and the entire neighborhood was evacuating, and everyone was getting each other out of their houses. Before we even got the chance to evacuate and get out of our houses, some of the targeted buildings were bombed. There were a few injuries. Multiple buildings in the neighborhood were heavily damaged. And this is just how your life is as a Gazan.”
How have you been impacted by Israel’s blockade of aid in Gaza?
“The blockade that has been going on in Gaza is really starting to show the consequences of it, mainly on how empty the markets are. Every time I go to the market, I have my grocery list and what I need to get, and I rarely find 10% of what I have written on that paper.
“Sometimes I’m looking for flour, maybe sugar, some kinds of canned food — because that’s basically all we have — some kinds of vegetables, maybe. And it’s crazy that even these kinds of basic stuff don’t exist in the market. You go in the hope that you will find it, no matter what the price will be, but you don’t find it in the first place.
“I end up having to either buy whatever I can find in the market — whether I need it or not, it’s just to not go back empty handed — or I just go back home and, you know, deal with whatever I have available in my house and try to get on with my day.”
What does your daily diet look like?
“We have bread. We have canned food, like hummus. We have beans. Maybe some kinds of vegetables that we find, even though they are extremely expensive. That’s all we have available.
“I don’t honestly remember the last time I ate something fresh. For now, everything that’s in the markets is either frozen or canned … which, the nutritious value of these kinds of foods is almost nonexistent.”
How is Israel withholding aid and food from entering Gaza impacting your fitness journey, which you track on your Instagram account, Gymrat in Gaza?
“When the situation started to worsen, I had to cut down on the volume that I was doing. So I wasn’t training as many times in a week. I wasn’t doing that many exercises per workout. And after that, as the situation got even worse, I am right now cutting my volume even more and more, and eventually, I’m going to have to stop because I’m going to be barely getting any calories in to have just my vital functions, my biological function, going — like breathing and circulation and all of that stuff. I’m barely going to get enough calories to get these things going.
“Honestly, it’s really frustrating, to say the least. It’s really starting to get to me — the fact that, first of all, I had to quit the gym and workout at home, and now I have to cut down on my workouts at home. And of course I’m going to keep going with everything else going on in my life, like my university studies, documenting my journey and all of that stuff. But overall, working out has been the most important thing that I’ve been working on and having to let go of it is no easy task, to be honest.”
It’s not just food. There’s also medicine, fuel and other aid stopped at the border. Are you seeing this impact people around you?
“Oh, yeah, it’s definitely impacting a lot of people more than it is impacting me because, at the end of the day, working out can wait. But what are you going to say to people who have certain diseases, or that have certain conditions, that doesn’t allow them to eat certain foods and has them rely on specific products?
“For example, my grandma, she had cancer in the past and right now, her health isn’t in the best condition that it could be. And before, in the days when the ceasefire was in effect, she was relying on dates, she was relying on powdered milk and all of these kinds of nutritious stuff to help her keep going with her day-to-day life. But now that the borders are closed, none of this stuff basically exists. And it’s been really tough for her recently, and her health is declining right now. I just hope that it will get better for these people. I mean, for me, I can wait. It’s fine. I’m not going to work out if it’s going to make it easier for these people.
“But at the end of the day, we are all suffering. For someone to suffer more, it’s not going to make it easier for anyone else.”
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
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Hafsa Quraishi produced and edited this segment for broadcast with Michael Scotto. Quraishi also adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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