re: #24 ArmyWife

he people from Beit Lahia are starting from zero again: children load wood from broken trees onto their back. Their mothers bend over fires and bake bread. Young women carry water in petrol canisters. Only the men stand around looking numb, smoking, staring blankly.

Could this be part of the Gazan’s problem with productivity?

I thought the same thing when I read that one line.
The women are innately tending to the basics of life and sustaining life for their family and the men are standing around. Doesn’t anyman know how to dig a hole and bury the remains of the donkeys and sheep carcasses that are rotting in the street? What gives?
Are they waiting for someone else to come in to offer to do the restoration of their homes and streets for them? What has happened to the survival instinct of these people?