Gaza: It’s a terrifying time for us all

The noise of the drones is constant, like an oversized, overzealous mosquito endlessly hovering by my ear.

We’ve been sleeping with all our windows open, despite the cold. It’s because when a bomb lands next to your house you don’t want the glass to shatter and fall into you while you are sleeping.

We wake up coughing. The smell of gunpowder is acrid – like burning tyres – and hangs on the air around us.

Distributing food and water

Today we have been mapping out our emergency response in greater detail.

We’re going to distribute food parcels, water and shelter materials to families, and vital medicines and surgical equipment to hospitals. Everyone is running out of everything.

I’m the security focal point here, so I need to stay on top of every bomb, every target. I need to know where all our staff are, and I’ve already had to move five of our team after their neighbourhoods were bombed. It’s a terrifying time for us all.

Please donate to our emergency fund

We know that children are particularly vulnerable. We have high levels of malnutrition here in Gaza, and without nutritious food – even for a few days – the consequences could be devastating.

And then we have the children’s mental health to think about. They’ll be experiencing and witnessing terrible things.

We need to make sure they and their parents are able to cope. We are planning to set up child-friendly areas with specially trained staff and counsellors to help children to cope with these experiences and to support basic education to re-start.

On one call today I heard about another two schools that have been hit. Each school gave education to 800 children. In thirty seconds, 1,600 children lost their education. It makes me angry, sad, frustrated, determined.