Gaza: 50 years of hard work destroyed

22 January 2009

Oxfam's Mohammed Ali continues to report from his home in Gaza City during the aftermath of the Israeli military offensive.

Today I went to see some Oxfam projects in the Zaytoun area, which had finished only weeks before the Israeli military operation started. We had paid local people to mend the roads so that farmers we work with could sell their goods more easily. In winter especially, farmers struggled to get their produce to market.

Before the conflict started, we were buying farmers' produce and then distributing it to the most vulnerable families in Gaza. I met one of our tomato suppliers; he was distraught. "I cannot believe it. I used to sell Oxfam tomatoes to give to the poor...now I am poor... it is Oxfam that will have to deliver tomatoes to me. My farm has been completely destroyed by the Israeli military. I do not know what I will do."

Around me I saw complete devastation; countless uprooted trees, farms destroyed by tanks and bombs, and houses reduced to rubble. It is in this area that thirty members of the same family were killed, I saw the mourning tent pitched amongst the rubble.

I met with Sameh Al Sawaferi who is 58 years old; he is a father for 11 and the biggest chicken and egg farmer in the Gaza Strip. Every day he sold 1,000 chickens and produced 120,000 packs of eggs, each pack containing 30 eggs. He supplied Oxfam with eggs just before the Israeli military offensive started.

The smell and sight as I went to greet him made me retch, 60,000 chickens were laying there, dead.

Israeli tanks had destroyed the entire farm including the chickens, those that were spared probably died later of dehydration and hunger. Sameh was told by the Israeli troops that occupied the area to leave so he could not tend to them.

"Along with many other people from the area, I was asked by the Israeli military to go into one room. Among us were people who had just been injured. We were told to leave immediately or face death. We asked if we could take the injured with us, the answer was no. When we returned, those whom we were forced to leave behind were dead, " Sameh told me. I said he must report this to Oxfam partner the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, who are documenting allegations of war crimes.

Sameh was only able to go back when the attacks ended, he returned to find 50 years of his hard work destroyed. " I never imagined I would lose everything. The sight of my farm destroyed was devastating and then I entered my house only to see soldiers' footprints, they had left their food and defecated around my home," he said. As he was telling me this I looked up and saw the words, 'Leave, or you will be killed', scribbled on the wall.

I asked him what he was going to do with the dead chickens, thinking about the potential public health disaster they could cause. " I don't know...I don't know about anything any more."

He asked me what Oxfam was doing about the situation in Gaza. I explained to him that we are delivering food parcels, providing water and hygiene kits to people.

Although Sameh has suffered a great loss he is not as vulnerable as other small-scale farmers in the area. I returned home wondering how those farmers will cope and whether or not I would ever be able to face eating chicken again.