By Elizabeth Sykes 

Jameel al-Karoubi and his donkey once sold vegetables, but now they walk the neighborhood giving water to their local community.

“I made a deal with my buddy Almond, that if he keeps waking up early every day and helps me fill the water tank and distribute it to the neighborhood, I’d give him an extra bag of food every day,” Jameel told Al Jazeera.

Before the war broke out, the 34-year-old sold vegetables from the back of his cart, said The Business Standard.

Now, Jameel rises before sunup and heads into Gaza with Almond to distribute clean drinking water to his neighborhood, to help quench his neighbors’ thirst. Jameel started handing out water from a well he inherited from his father soon after Israel started bombing Gaza. Israel has cut off crucial supplies such as water and electricity to the district a week and a half ago.

Jameel lives with his mother, wife and four children, said Al Jazeera, but he claims their well holds enough water for their family and neighbors. In the morning, he  uses the well to attend to his family’s own water requirements first, then takes two large tanks for his local neighborhood without thought of payment. 

“I don’t sell it, I distribute it for free,” he says. “If I don’t help my people, who will help them? Israel? I doubt it.”

Jameel’s youngest son told Al Jazeera, “It’s very dangerous of course, missiles are falling indiscriminately all over Gaza. But we can’t stop him…People love us and that’s all we could want in return.” 

His son continued, “My father feels he has an obligation to help people, any people, even strangers. And he is happiest and proudest when people can go to bed at night without being thirsty.”

The rubble left by Israeli missile attacks makes it difficult to take his cart through Gaza’s streets these days, said Jameel, but he would like to help more people if he could, reported Al Jazeera.

A neighbor of Jameel said, “I just don’t know what we would do if Jameel weren’t around…We tried to go to the aid agencies to get water, but they are very crowded and the water there doesn’t taste clean.”

Israel has recently cowed to U.S. pressure to resume water supplies to southern Gaza, but lack of electricity has made it impossible for it to be pumped into people’s homes. Local doctors have warned against catastrophe if hospitals run out of fuel and water.  

On the humanitarian situation awaiting evacuees from northern Gaza, Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Peter Lerner told TIME that there are basic needs, including food supplies, “for several weeks,” though this contradicts most information coming from the besieged enclave, including from the World Health Organization and the U.N. 

On Monday the U.N. reported “severely limited access to clean drinking water” and “worsening food insecurity” in southern Gaza. International law requires that the Israeli evacuation of northern Gaza provide those displaced with adequate shelter, hygiene, health, safety, and nutrition, TIME Magazine said.

During all these hardships, Jameel hands out whatever spare vegetables he has grown for free as well.

“I don’t mind giving out free vegetables when I have extra,” he says. “It makes me, and people, happier.”

About the war, Jameel said he doesn’t have any idea when it might end. But on impacting his neighbors, the vegetable grower said, “As long as my people are in need, I’ll be there, trying to be as much help as I can.”