Diaa, a middle-aged father and husband, was a polite host at his family home in one of the refugee camps in central Gaza. But you could see his pain.
Please come in. This is Abdullah's room.
Abdullah was his 19-year-old eldest son. On 2 August he was shot dead waiting for the daily opening of one of the food distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). It started operating in Gaza in May, established by Israel and the US and protected by the Israeli military, the IDF, and armed American security guards who are special forces veterans.
In Abdullah's empty bedroom, Diaa hugged his son's school bag.
My darling boy. His smell is still on it. May God have mercy on you, my son, forgive you, and accept you in the highest ranks of Paradise, God willing, with the Lord of the Worlds.
Diaa blames himself. The night before he said to me, 'Dad, I want to go.'
I told him, 'For God's sake, I don't want you to go tomorrow, please don't go.'
He said, God willing, everything will be fine, Dad.
Of course it's an awful feeling, as if I was the one who killed my son, as if I was the one who sent him to his death.
But we needed that aid. I gave up my eldest son so he could feed his siblings, his father and his mother.
Gaza is gripped by famine caused by Israel restricting food and other vital supplies. The only time that aid agencies and commercial shippers were able to get in adequate supplies was during the ceasefire that started on 19 January this year. That stopped abruptly when Israel imposed a total blockade on 2 March and two weeks later went back to war.
The global body that assesses food emergencies, the IPC, said in its most recent report in August that the famine had reached Gaza City. Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu says there is no famine in Gaza, rejecting the overwhelming evidence presented by the IPC as an outright lie. The IPC is globally respected as an impartial and expert body. Netanyahu says Israel is not responsible for any shortages.
He blames ineptitude at UN agencies in Gaza and has repeatedly accused the UN of doing nothing about the systematic theft of food by Hamas. The UN denies his allegations, arguing that its consignments are bar-coded and traceable. Israel, it says, has never provided evidence of the allegations of systematic theft, despite repeated UN requests.
Famine is why Palestinians in Gaza, many of them young men like Abdullah, are prepared to risk their lives at the GHF sites to get food.
It is nearly two years since Hamas killed 1,195 people in southern Israel and took 251 hostages. Forty-eight Israelis are still in Gaza. Perhaps 20 of them are thought to be alive. It remains Israel's biggest trauma since its independence in 1948.
Israel's response has been to inflict the biggest trauma Palestinians have suffered in the same nearly eight decades. The Israelis continue to argue they are acting in self-defense in Gaza - a narrow strip of land that is now in ruins, and has seen the killing by Israel of at least 65,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, including more than 18,000 children. Israel rejects these figures but they are generally considered reliable by international organizations.
Abdullah was a bright young man. Sticky notes above his desk display reminders to himself to aim for 95% in his exams. Judging by the photos his father provides, he dressed smartly, with a sharp haircut and an expectant smile. He must have seen possibilities ahead in his life, even in Gaza, a place where life was hard even before the war. Now it is reduced to a struggle to survive Israeli attacks and the famine.
