Daily struggles of Gazans contradict Israeli claims that aid flotilla's mission was redundant as there is no humanitarian crisis
It's Friday, the Muslim weekend, and the Sharif family are looking forward to the highlight of their week: chicken for lunch. In the bare kitchen of their home in the overcrowded Beach refugee camp, Amal Sharif, 45, bends over a steaming pan of maftoul – stewed chicken with couscous – as the younger of her 10 children run in and out in excited anticipation.
Chicken – this large one cost 60 shekels (£10.60) – is a once-a-week treat. The rest of the time the family mainly exists on UN handouts of flour, rice and oil, alongside small cash grants. The children ask for fruit, an impossible luxury, and the family has not eaten beef for a year.
For 18 years, her husband, Adal Sharif, 47, earned a good living working for a shipping firm in Israel. That ended in 2000 when Israel sealed Gazans behind fences and walls at the start of the second intifada.
His next career, as a fisherman, ended when his boat was destroyed during the three-week Gaza war in 2008-9.
Clutching prayer beads in one hand and a cigarette in the other, Sharif says: "My income has dropped 100%. When you have no money, everything is too expensive."
His daily struggle to feed his family contradicts statements this week by Israeli officials that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Since Israel launched a bloody assault on the flotilla attempting to bring aid to the besieged Gaza Strip, Tel Aviv has repeatedly insisted that the mission was redundant.
But the piles of food in the markets – fruit, vegetables, nuts, sweets even live rabbits – are unaffordable to most in the strip and obscure a complex picture of rising poverty, a parallel economy, and brewing anger among Gazans at the micro-control that Israel exerts over their daily lives.
What is allowed in and what is denied is ever-changing according to mystifying and capricious criteria. To Gazans it is hard to understand why coriander is banned but cinnamon is allowed, why children are denied toys and car owners spare parts.
"Two weeks ago they stopped coffee beans," says Raed Fatouh, who co-ordinates with the Israelis on the crossing points. "I called them, and they said they couldn't allow in beans, only ground coffee."
The reason, he said, was that beans require grinding and that could be categorised as an industrial process.
"It's the same with butter. If it comes in a 20kg slab they won't allow it because it needs to be cut up. But they will allow in small packets of butter. They won't let anything in that could provide work for a small business."
Basic food aid is permitted. Eight in 10 Gazans are dependent on aid, and the distribution points around Gaza City were this week doing considerably brisker business than grocery stores.
At one depot, run by the UN relief and works agency, Dina Aldan, 22, is queueing amid a throng of women in black jilbab clutching her ration card along with her five-month old baby, Najwan. Through a warehouse hatch she is thrust a clear plastic bag for her family of five: two bottles of cooking oil, 3kg (6.6lb) of sugar, 3kg of rice, a bag of milk and a can of corned mutton. The 30kg of flour Aldan is entitled to would require someone with stronger arms.
"I get these supplies every three months but they only last one week," she says. "I have to go the market for other food, but everything is so expensive, the quality is not good and many things I can't get."
Her husband, a glass worker, works one day in 10. Their home was destroyed in the Gaza war and now the rent drains the family income.
For Dina Aldan and many like her there is a difficult choice about whether to take home the aid or to sell it to the traders who wait outside the depot.
The UN says it does not police what recipients do with the aid, but acknowledges that the poor have a variety of needs that they struggle to meet. "The slow death of the Gazan economy means that some of the poorest people have been reduced to a demonetarised medieval barter system," says a UN spokesman, Chris Gunness.
Gaza's once-thriving legitimate economy has been largely supplanted by the illegal import of goods smuggled through tunnels from Egypt.
This parallel market, which is estimated to provide employment for about 200,000 people, superficially appears to be catering well to the needs of the population.
Israel points to the wide range of goods available in Gaza's shops. But customers and shop owners have a different story to tell.
In a well-stocked grocery store in Gaza City, 62-year-old Abu Hassan is poring over his accounts spread out on the counter. His family have owned the shop for 50 years, but business has never been worse. "How many customers did you see come into the shop while you've been here?" he asks. "Not one."
The tunnel goods are very expensive, he says, and poor quality. He produces a packet of Egyptian biscuits, crushed inside their wrappings. He had been forced to jettison the entire consignment without compensation from his dealers. "There's nothing I can do, and I had paid for it in advance," he says.
Nearby, Walid Naim, 42, gestures to the piles of high-definition televisions, blenders, microwaves, washing machines, fridge freezers, hair straighteners and vacuum cleaners in his family-owned business. "Everything is from the tunnels," he says, sipping from a tiny porcelain cup of Arabic coffee. "We used to make money, but now people have no cash to buy goods." Electricity blackouts for up to eight hours a day don't help. "Why buy electrical goods if you can't use them?" Naim asks with a shrug.
"The world doesn't understand the crisis in Gaza," adds his brother, Wissam, 35, against the headache-inducing thrum of generators that is part of Gaza's soundtrack. "The whole world is punishing us."
There are suggestions that, following the international furore generated by the assault on the aid flotilla, Israel could ease its blockade to allow additional food relief into the Gaza Strip.
But the siege of Gaza is not just about bags of flour or bottles of cooking oil, important though they are.
The health system is in crisis, the UN says, with a critical shortage of medical equipment. The UN is unable to repair schools damaged in the Gaza war, or build new ones to cope with the exploding population. Paper, desks and other basic school supplies are hard to obtain.
And the impact of the siege extends beyond material items to a psychological isolation. "We are also under siege mentally – we are disconnected from the rest of the world," says economist Omar Shaban.
Analysts and aid organisations reject Israel's dismissal of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
"People think Gaza is like Darfur," says Shaban. "It's totally different. It's not about a lack of food, but the number of people who can't afford to buy the food is increasing. That is a humanitarian crisis."
His point is echoed by Gunness. "This is not a sub-Saharan crisis. It's a politically driven crisis with grave humanitarian consequences."
Back in the jumble of breeze-block buildings in the Beach refugee camp, Adal Sharif is contemplating the future for his large brood of children. "I'm not optimistic," he says, twisting his prayer beads. "But I'm asking Europe to put pressure on Israel to lift the siege, to let my children live and feel freedom."
Gaza in figures
• Unemployment is at 44%
• Eight out of 10 Gazans are dependent on aid
• The number of people defined as the "abject poor" (unable to feed themselves or their families) has increased from 100,000 to 300,000 in past 12 months
• GDP per capita fell from $2,500 (£1,718) in 1998/99 to $600 last year
• An estimated 20,000 people work in the tunnels industry
• Oxfam estimates that last week 631 trucks of carrying humanitarian supplies were permitted entry – 22% of the weekly average (2,807 truckloads) before Israel's blockade
• Last week 871 tonnes of cooking gas reportedly entered Gaza, half of the normal weekly level
• 1,063m litres of industrial fuel were delivered that week for Gaza's power plant – only 30% of the 3.5m litres needed weekly.
No comments:
Post a Comment