He has succeeded in making contact with local merchants who sell basic foodstuffs.
With the help of the UN, Nidal hopes that he can serve the tens of thousands of people who, at the request of Israel’s military, have fled to the south and have basically nothing but the clothes they came in.
Nidal has worked for the People’s Church Aid and lived in Gaza for many years, so he knows who to contact.
The mission to bring food to the school failed on Saturday.
On Sunday afternoon, however, six lorries managed to arrive at the school with, among other things, biscuits, feta and tinned tuna.
However, the school is not equipped to house the many Palestinians.
This is what Jonas Vejsager Nøddekær, who is the international director of the Norwegian Church’s Aid, and who has spoken to Nidal on several occasions, tells us.
Almost everything is missing, and the hygiene conditions are terrible, it says.
– It is practically impossible to work down there, because the merchants who have to drive the goods around are afraid of being hit, and several of the roads are blocked, says Jonas Vejsager Nøddekær.
Temperatures have dropped below 20 degrees at night, and there are not blankets for everyone.
At the same time, there are only four toilets available.
It is too early to say how far the food will go, but the Norwegian Church Aid has four million kroner available, which they want to use.
– What we tell Nidal is that he should just buy the goods he can get.
The challenge is that the prices of goods are constantly rising because the demand is high.
– But that is of course why we are issuing a strong call for the government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to make some money available for humanitarian efforts, says the director.
Israel has placed Gaza under a complete blockade, which means that no goods can be brought into the Palestinian territory, which borders Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean.
According to Jonas Vejsager Nøddekær, there were 12,000 trucks that delivered goods to the area in August by driving back and forth between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
The UN estimates that around a million people have been forced from their homes in the Gaza Strip in just over a week.
/ritzau/