their way out. nick: international aid agencies say palestinians in occupied territories are facing a deepening humanitarian crisis. this, as they live under the continuous risk of israeli attacks. so why is their situation worsening, and what is the international response? this is "inside story." ♪ hello there, and welcome to the program. i am nick clark.

living under israeli occupation and the constant risk of attack is a reality of daily life of palestinians in their homeland. but even that grim existence is becoming harsher, with a far right israeli government in power and funding cuts for international aid agencies and organizations. we will be discussing what this means in a few moments with our guests. but first, a report on the situation palestinians face. reporter: life has been hard for palestinians living under israeli occupation, and now it is going to get harder. israel's far-right government is implementing policies that restrict palestinians even further, with more land being taken from them in occupied west bank. this year alone, more than 150 palestinians have been killed. violence against them is at its highest in decades. and now, a massive shortfall in international aid. that means the provisions of basic food, water, sanitation, and even education is under threat. the united nations refugee

agency of palestinians has made an urgent appeal. >> starting 2023 off with a $75 million u.s. debt carried over from the last year is a stark reminder of the precarious state they find themselves in. they will run out of money by september, unless we disperse immediate funds. reporter: nearly six million palestinians in the occupied west bank, gaza strip, and palestinian refugees in syria, lebanon, and jordan, depend on aid. palestinians are also facing the highest increase in food prices in six years, with unemployment at an all-time high. nearly 50% in the gaza strip. intense israeli airstrikes last month and severe restrictions on palestinians by land and sea have caused significant financial and humanitarian losses in gaza.

ahmed used to run a textile factory but because of the blockade he has reduced operations and even the number of staff he employs. >> in the past, this factory had 300 workers. we used to export to israel and the rest of the world, but because of the restrictions and violence, it is barely running now. reporter: the world food program has also appealed for help. 200,000 palestinians will no longer receive food assistance because of severe funding shortages. and by august, it will be forced to suspend all operations in the occupied west bank and gaza if no international aid is received. nick: let's take a closer look at the situation. according to the world food program, 35% of palestinians living in the occupied west bank and gaza have difficulty getting enough food. that is around 1.84 million people. women are particularly hard-hit in the gaza strip.

63% of households headed by females are affected. the wfp says funding shortages also mean about 60% of those it helps in the occupied palestinian territories are not getting the assistance with food that the agency normally provides them. according to the world bank, just under 60% of people in gaza live in poverty. let's take this on. for more, i am joined by our guests, all in gaza. first up, maha hussaini, an award-winning journalist and strategy director at euro-med human rights monitor. samer abdeljaber is palestine country director for the world food program, the wfp. and we have najla shawa, who is an aid worker and a mother of two children, and a longtime resident of gaza. she and her family have survived several israeli raids on the city. a warm welcome to all of you. najla, i would like to start with you, if i may.

as i say, you are a mom and a military and worker, you see it from all sides. we have a situation now where food prices are up 20%, money coming in is down radically, and all the time you are living under the israeli blockade and ongoing attacks. describe for us, if you will, what it is like trying to run a family as a resident of gaza, what daily life is like. najla: yeah, sure, thanks for having me. well, honestly, it's a constant state of anxiety at best for those who can't afford daily living and still can survive. the problem is that with a majority of the population around us and the community around me, we continue to suffer from this kind of fluctuation in everything. there is every day uncertainty and anxiety in how life can be lived, basically.

from power cuts, to water quality issues, inability to move and travel, and expect just another military attack against the strip and continue to suffer again and again. now, in terms of the current situation, i think what is more dangerous is that the world does not hear it because it can hardly make news. the very silent suffering of people on the ground due to the difficulty of the economic situation simply makes life extremely hard for the entire population. nick: ok. maha hussaini, this is a story of challenge, of difficulty, not just in gaza but across the palestinian territory. maha: yeah. actually it is not only in gaza, but maybe gaza is the most

impacted by the crisis in general. this month we are entering the 18th year of israel's blockade. anyone could imagine the impact of 17 years of closure and tight restrictions can have on the lives of over two million residents. we are already three years ahead of the year in which the u.n. said life would be unlivable in gaza. and during the years of the occupation, whether in the west bank or gaza strip, especially the years of the blockade and after the multiple major israeli military attacks, tens of thousands of palestinians in gaza have lost their jobs either because of the culture that rendered import and exports difficult for hundreds of businesses that shut down as a result, or because of israel's targeting of businesses during attacks. we're actually talking about the

vast majority of people, the vast majority of factories, about 80% of factories have shut down since the imposition of the israeli blockade. of course as a result, we're witnessing a surge in unemployment and food insecurity rates that are considered among the highest in the world. for instance, in gaza, the unemployment rate is double that of the west bank, and it has risen around from 23% before the imposition of the blockade in 2005, to 47% actually by the end of 2022. also, poverty has risen sharply due to the israeli obstructions. from 40% in 2005 to over 61% in 2022. this surge -- nick: we will explore this further. all the statistics, what you are saying, is they are all going in the wrong direction.

i will come back to you in a second, but next if we can come to you, samer, from the world food program. what are the bare facts, from your point of view? to what degree is aid having to be cut and what impact is that having? samer: thank you, nick. i think starting with the impact, last week i was in gaza and i visited some families together with al jazeera colleagues. the situation is very dire. like najla and maha were saying, we're seeing food insecurity was already high, 1.83 million people are in need of food assistance. we are looking at a fiscal crisis affecting all stakeholders. we are seeing difficulties in salaraies. we are seeing difficulties in other programs that are affecting ngo's.

we are looking at a situation that is desperate. families are having difficulties in putting food on the table. at the same time, many of them are coming to us saying we do not need humanitarian assistance, we just want you to support us with economic opportunities, employment opportunities, and we will be able to take care of ourselves. so we are looking at the way we are supporting those vulnerable families, that it is time-bound in the sense that they want to do more, they can do more. they are highly educated, there is a huge percentage of youth who really want to do and deliver. and until that moment where they are able to secure funding for themselves and their families, we would be giving them hope. and unfortunately, the funding situation for us has been difficult for quite some time. and we have been living month by month to make sure those vulnerable families are not falling even further into food insecurity levels. nick: you mentioned youth. i do wonder about the children. najla, how is it for your children?

tell us how old all are and how they are coping with all of this. najla: yeah, my children are nine and six years old. unfortunately, i have had to face a whole new challenge since the beginning of their awareness to the difficulties of gaza, despite how privileged we are as a family. however, living in gaza is in a constant stress after facing israeli raids just a few weeks ago. and i think it just puts parents at extreme pressure on a daily basis to try and bring any trust with your children of a better future, or even a better tomorrow. like, literally tomorrow. so it is an extremely challenging environment with very difficult questions. like, how do you raise a child in an environment where you sleep while you expect the glass

nearby you to simply break on top of you? i mean, these kind of things are part of our daily conversations with me and my children. and i think the majority of children in the gaza strip in no way continue to deserve to live this way. especially because exactly like what samer was saying, people here want to work, they want to earn a living, they want opportunity, and they seek it every single day. why would people work for 12 hours or more for $2 in gaza? you cannot believe the level of desperation in terms of wanting to receive education, wanting to work, just anything to earn a living. i think this all brings us back to this highly concerning situation of the lack of aid programs. why do we have this problem?

it is simply because the political issues have never been resolved and never been looked at. i think the world knows enough about the situation and the injustice that this population continues to see, generation after the other. so yes, i do wonder what do i tell my children when they have never lived a day full of having power supply, issues like that, or not being able to travel, for example. i mean, all these issues continue to really make our life completely uncertain and full of anxiety. nick: samer, let's try and answer that question. why has it gotten to the stage? the political thing is critical, obviously, a political point of view. but what else is happening here? there is a global food crisis going on, living expenses around the world are rocketing. is that what it is about?

why have your funds plummeted in the way they have, to the extent that you need $51 million just to the end of the year? samer: that is correct. it has been difficult since the last year, honestly. we have been living on a month by month basis. many of the donors have stepped up last minute to avoid budget cuts. but unfortunately we had to get to this point where we need to announce cuts to beneficiaries simply because we don't have enough resources that will allow us to continue. and we needed to prioritize the remaining funding to make sure we are able to reach the most in need, even at those difficult times. so, the situation has been bad. i think the global crisis has actually made a major impact on our operations. but also if you go to the market, the prices have been soaring. i think earlier, maha mentioned a 20% increase in commodities, the price of commodities. since almost a year, we have been monitoring more than 40 different food commodities and issuing market monitoring

reports, and unfortunately we don't see prices going down. we are seeing more people depending on coping strategies even to cover some of their basic needs. nick: what about money coming into your coffers, that has dwindled too? people are just not donating as much, is that right? samer: we have received less than what we received last year so far and we are working with all of our partners to make sure we mobilize the funding that is needed. nick: because we are hearing similar stories about the rohingya in myanmar, the fact you had to cut down daily rations there too. it is a similar story with gaza. samer: unfortunately with a lack of political solutions in many of the crisis, we will see more needs of food security that started during covid and continuing with the situations around the globe. nick: maha, you touched on the international side of things. do you feel deserted by the

international community? maha: well actually, i guess palestinians are feeling that they are being failed. they are unfortunately, gradually losing means of survival, and the future actually will see even more suffocating humanitarian crisis as long as the international community allows israel to continue with its abuses and violations against palestinians. and actually, the problem is much more profound than the economic or property crisis. for palestinians, such crises are now determining the future and destiny of palestinians. in the past, palestinians, with the support of the international community, where their main concern was to live freely and to end the illegal occupation. but today, their main and daily concern for the vast majority of the families is how to merely

secure food and stay alive, as samer has said. so, many of them only wait for the monthly humanitarian aid provided by the international organization, which is actually the only aid or support provided by the international community to palestinians. and this is unfortunately the result of the strategy of starving palestinians israel has been adopting for the past years. because a hungry person cannot think of dignity or freedom unless he secures his food. it's actually as simple as that. the thing is that the international community is actually allowing israel to go further than that, which is israel is taking advantage of the fact that palestinians are actually starving, and also extorting palestinians, especially those in the gaza strip, which is a very more dangerous fact. a few months ago, or a few years

ago following the israeli military attack on gaza in 2021, the israeli authorities allowed tens of thousands of palestinians from gaza to be employed doing low scale jobs in israel for the first time. and of course hundreds of thousands applied to the permits to work, but since then, there are several documented cases in which these workers have been extorted by the israeli intelligence at the border and forced to give sensitive information about their neighbors. so of course those who refused to give information were simply denied work permits and were not allowed into israeli territories. this is deeply saddening -- nick: thank you for that. i just want to bring najla back in. as far as the international community is concerned, are you feeling that things have changed for the worse since the trump presidency, and we saw the normalization of relations with various countries, and that has

kind of engendered this lack of care from the international community? najla: yeah. i mean, obviously the answer is yes. things have gotten worse in terms of the politics from the region around us. that is what unfortunately palestinians have been feeling more and more. that feeling, exactly, from some arab countries. however, the other more important issue is what brought us to this mess to begin with. it was international community that supported israel all the way, or major parts of the international community. that is actually what has allowed this to happen. maybe on one hand there's very generous support and good assistance to the palestinian people. however, on the other hand, there's not enough, i guess, serious act or move towards israeli policies to actually stop all of this to begin with. and i think this comes from the simple lack of recognition that

we are equal in this equation, and that this continues to be the case. we know that populations across the globe, there is a lot of solidarity with palestinians. we see that and we love that. however, we know that when it comes to politics and decisions, it does not work this way. so in a way, humanitarian assistance is very much needed at this point. and when i think about the world food program and other programs at this point, it is a major safety net program for people. this is what keeps people really going day by day, having food. some days food insecurity, and everyone knows it is hardly enough. however, also, silencing palestinians with just a bit of aid and not a proper support in the policy environment will not help, and we know that this will continue to be costly for everyone, for the international community, for palestinians, and for humanity. and it will continue to be like many other crises in the world.

but more apparently here, nobody can speak to israel. nobody can say no to israel. that is really the problem. many see that on a daily basis, there are violations against palestinians, in gaza and in the west bank increasingly. and this is not stopping. so, this is also something that i think needs to simply stay on the news. and we hope that not the next time we are on the news, it is a military operation, only an announcement of a further report that says palestinians have a deteriorating humanitarian crisis with increased food insecurity. nick: it is certainly negative news, isn't it, that we hear most of the time. samer, you are the palestine country director for the world food program. i just wonder, from your heart, from a personal perspective, now you are having to cut this

safety net for so many hundreds of thousands of palestinians. how does it make you feel that you have to tell them this news, that you have to oversee these cuts? samer: thanks, nick. it's a difficult question, and i have to say that when we announced that we had to cut 200,000 people out of assistance in june unless funding comes, it was not an easy decision. we went to the last moment to make sure that we did not keep a door that we did not knock. we're working, still, tirelessly with all different stakeholders to see if we are able to basically avert this decision. if funding comes tomorrow, i will be able to avert that decision. and having those families on the back of our mind, looking at them, and our team is on the ground visiting some of those families. in the last two weeks we have had 12,000 calls into our call center and we are dealing with every call personally, with

passion, because we understand how difficult this decision is for many families. like you said, it is a lifeline support to them, as a humanitarian support, the electronic budgets we give is allowing people a dignified way of assistance that they can go to contractor jobs and buy the food items that they need. but at the same time, it is also supporting local economies, the 300-plus shops we contracted the west bank and gaza are supporting value chains, local daily production, job creation across the chain, and the impact is huge on this economy from a development perspective and job creation perspective. so it is not an easy decision for us. and that is one of the things that drives us to really continue. and i think al jazeera for really covering this, because together, we will be able to hopefully avert and be able to secure funding. nick: maha, just this hope for the future and where you find it, i was reading that every

year, something like 12,000 to 15,000 university graduates, through, and of course they just end up unemployed. what can one even say to try and give them some kind of hope for a decent future? maha: actually, they are very well aware that every year the federation is worse than the year before. the long years of the blockade have rendered palestinians, including youth and graduates, unable to cope with the severe restrictions and continuous military attacks for years. they are unable to cope with this as the international aid organizations are also facing more restrictions for funds and operations on the ground. so, i guess that as long as this continues, as long as these

restrictions continue, i guess that palestinians are well aware that they are unable to further cope with the situation, and they are feeling that the international community is once again failing them, and also contributing to making them unable to secure their own sources of livelihoods. as samer said, palestinians, especially graduates, those tens of thousands of graduates who are graduating every year, are able actually to secure a source of livelihoods, but all they need is to protect this source of livelihoods, as israel is actually targeting the main sources of livelihoods, especially in the gaza strip, including farming and fishing, which are the two main sources of income for palestinians in gaza. nick: najla, you talked about your kids, your children, and how, you know, you have this

difficult conversation, which will get harder as they get older and understand more about what is going on. but what do you say when the city is under bombardment, and they can hear the noise of that, and you are thinking about their future? what can you say to them to try and give them hope? najla: i tell you, i mean, this is a very good question, and it continues to be a very hard conversation. now, i think having to explain just enough so that if you can make sense of such events, especially when you have questions like, why here, why us? you know, all these questions. the issue is that i think we have a lot to explain. there's history to this land and there is a history to this injustice. and simply by trying to be -- i don't want to use the word

resilient, but patient, work on a better future and have a say in our future. that's what i'm trying to raise my kids to be, is that palestinians should not be seen as victims, should be leading their lives. and i think the new generation is probably going to teach this again, and bring some hope for a better tomorrow. although it is extremely hard, but i guess we have no other choice but to give this hope and nourish self-determination. this is where we are, and this is what we are going to be working on. simply to be here and get education and seek good skill development, have a strong understanding of things, and just simply grow in this world,

or in this part of this world as much as possible. and be good. nick: thank you so much to all our guests for speaking to us here at al jazeera. do appreciate it. maha hussaini, samer abdeljaber, and najla shawa. and thank you, too, for watching. you can view the program again any time by visiting our website, aljazeera.com. and for further discussion, just go to our facebook page, facebook.com/ajinsidestory. you can of course join the conversation on twitter, at @ajinsidestory. from me, nick clark, and the whole team here, it is goodbye for now. ♪

- how my life becomes better is politics. - wee going changeity ha. - i'formallynnouncin my candidacy - wee going focity couil district 8. - i'formallynnouncin mthe di am he,says,he los on am her i amrans-visible." [a[aient mus]g]