tag:www.oxfam.org.uk,2009:/applications/blogs/palterr_israel/79 2009-07-03T10:19:55Z Reports on the current situation in the occupied Palestinian territories. Movable Type 3.33 tag:www.oxfam.org.uk,2009:/applications/blogs/palterr_israel//79.3240 2009-07-03T10:13:29Z 2009-07-03T10:19:55Z

Two years of blockade and three weeks of military action have pushed ordinary Gazans into a state of continuing humanitarian crisis. Michael Bailey makes an empassioned plea for the end of the blockade. Two years ago, Oxfam Great Britain had...

Two years of blockade and three weeks of military action have pushed ordinary Gazans into a state of continuing humanitarian crisis. Michael Bailey makes an empassioned plea for the end of the blockade. Two years ago, Oxfam Great Britain had three staff in Gaza. We were helping to improve the water and sanitation services. We supported poor families to start vegetable gardens and rabbit breeding. Then the Israeli blockade slammed the gates of Gaza shut on development and prosperity for its one and a half million people. Since then Oxfam has argued against the blockade, which punishes the ordinary people of Gaza for rocket fire and the imprisonment of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit over which they have no control. International humanitarian law defines this as collective punishment which is illegal. On top of this, six months ago people in Gaza endured a three-week Israeli military operation and intense conflict with Palestinian armed groups. More than 4000 homes were destroyed. Schools and factories, hospitals and flour mills were bombed and shelled. Water wells and electricity lines were blown up. Fields and olive groves were torn apart. Over 1400 hundred Palestinians died, some were armed fighters, most were not. Two days ago I revisited Gaza yet again. Hamas is still in control and people say more organised than before. The Oxfam office now has 20 staff and an annual budget of more than £8 million pounds mostly for humanitarian aid. That's a seven-fold increase in misery if our response is proportional to the need. I took a trip out of Gaza City to see what this looks like. I had visited Sameh El Sawafiri's family chicken farm before. The first time I was impressed by the noise. Forty thousand chickens eating and laying eggs. Oxfam was buying 15,000 eggs each week for the poorest 500 families in Gaza City. The eggs were part of our poor-to-poor fresh food aid programme. The second time I visited, this February I was impressed by the smell. 40,000 dead chickens rotting where the Israeli army had used bulldozers or tanks to crush them in their cages. This time I was impressed by Sameh's determination to rebuild his business. "Five families depend on my business for everything," he told me, "I have no choice." He explained that he has paid £30 a bag for two tons of cement. Before the blockade, it cost 33 pence a bag. Labour to recycle mangled cages and metal building supports cost three times as much as new materials. These are not available because of the blockade. Sameh is deep in debt. The 10,000 chickens he has been raising from eggs have two more months to grow before they start laying. They eat £700 worth of food each week. I asked if the blockade affects anything else. "Everything," he said, "When the Israeli troops were in my house they broke all the furniture and electrical equipment. They even cut holes in my mother's clothes and underwear. I can't replace any of it because of the blockade." I didn't see the damaged clothing but all the plastic chairs and the table we sat around to drink sweet tea were neatly mended with strips of wire or metal plates fixed with nuts and bolts. Holes punched by ammunition in cement block walls were uncovered and raw as they had been when I saw them in February. Sameh explained the problems he faces now. "I can't mend the damage to the house until the blockade on building materials is lifted. Even if I get compensation money I will use it to pay off my debts. If the blockade stays and I get no compensation it will take me 10 years to save enough to rebuild the rest of my farm. The building work itself is a six month job." This is living on the front line of collective punishment. Further south, east of the main Salah Ad Din Road lies Johir Ad Dik. What is left of this ravaged village sits close to the Israeli border. Driving round the tidied piles of building debris and the battered school I counted dozens of pale green nylon tents. Scattered amongst the grey smashed concrete they reminded me more of an Everest base camp than the tents of refugees. Um Shetewe described how she has pulled together a two tent shelter for her family of eight. Water comes from the local municipality through a surface pipe that somehow escaped damage. Electricity was restored after only three months. She is not so fortunate with the toilet which is a hole under a small cloth cubicle. She says at least they have it to themselves. Children and parents all use a bowl at the back of the sleeping tent for bathing. Um Shetewe listed Oxfam amongst several agencies that had provided parts of the support she relies on. Her husband lost his job when the municipality car he was paid to drive was crushed during the Israeli military occupation of their village. In February, the Palestinian Authority provided a single hardship payment of £2,500 that she has used for all their living expenses since then. It is almost all gone now. One humanitarian agency gave her a coupon for £75 that helped to replace the kitchen equipment the family lost. Oxfam and Unicef provided a hygiene kit (plastic bowls, soap, shampoo toothbrushes, toothpaste, combs, sanitary towels etc), parts of which she is still using. Her daily juggling act with money means that sometimes her daughter cannot get to her university course because Um Shetewe does not have £1 for the fare to get there and back. She is supposed to attend 5 days a week. Her brothers walk for an hour to get to school since the bicycles they used to use were flattened along with their house in January. It was hot standing talking to Um Shetewe outside her tent. It would have been hotter inside. Now I have some idea what misery looks like, although I can't know exactly what it feels like any more than I know what it feels like to live under the threat of rockets from Gaza. There is no justification for illegal actions, no matter what the size. There is no justification for making civilians suffer in this way. It's time to open Gaza. Now.]]> tag:www.oxfam.org.uk,2009:/applications/blogs/palterr_israel//79.3190 2009-05-18T15:50:45Z 2009-05-18T16:14:41Z

Oxfam's Sarah-Eve Hammond finds out about the booming Fair Trade sector in the occupied Palestinian Territories. Imagine promoting a product that already faces international competition and which grows on land that could be confiscated at any time. These are the...

Oxfam's Sarah-Eve Hammond finds out about the booming Fair Trade sector in the occupied Palestinian Territories. Imagine promoting a product that already faces international competition and which grows on land that could be confiscated at any time. These are the obstacles that the new marketing unit at the Fair Trade Development Centre (FTDC) in Bethlehem is trying to overcome to promote Palestine's bestseller: olive oil. Just as much a part of the local culture as the traditional keffiyeh, olive woodcarving and embroidery, olive oil is slowly becoming synonymous with Palestinian excellence and know-how. It is pretty amazing to see the level of commitment to this project. Every time I visit the various co-operatives we always talk about the difficulties faced by farmers in the occupied territories such as movement restrictions and land confiscations. But what we like to discuss most are the changes the project has brought about for the farmers and their communities. Since the olive oil project started last year with the support of the European Commission, olive growers have learned how to take better care of the fruit and how to improve storage conditions to ensure the oil is extra virgin. Co-operatives are now pooling their resources for the greater good of the group and a better olive oil, and a fair trade price has been established to give farmers a better income opportunity. New ventures are even being explored in order to expand exports. I met with Usama Khalilieh from the Fair Trade Development Centre at Bethlehem University to discover how Palestinian olive oil is conquering the world... or just about! "Of course, there is much more Italian and Spanish olive oil on the international market," says Usama. "But the point is not to take over. It would be impossible. We just want to increase our share of the global market and promote the fact that soon our oil will be fairtrade all the way from the moment the olives are picked in the fields to the moment the consumer buys our oil." The project has three components: Oxfam and partners work with co-operatives to improve the quality of their olive oil; the marketing unit tries to secure new opportunities and works towards getting fairtrade accreditation. At present, the co-operatives we work with have been accredited by the World Fairtrade Organisation. However, even though this step is already considered a great milestone, it only applies to the organisations themselves. What is needed now on the product itself is the Fairtrade Labelling Organisation's internationally known green and blue logo. "At the moment we work with Al Reef to export our oil abroad. Since the World Fairtrade Organisation already certifies Al Reef as a Fairtrade organisation we want to expand and secure accreditation for the entire supply chain with the Fairtrade Labelling Organisation (FLO). This will mean that our farmers, their co-operatives, the exporter, everybody working to produce olive oil are applying fairtrade principles throughout. This will give us a lot more exposure and marketing opportunities, and it will strengthen the farmers' income." However, setting up a strong marketing unit takes time and Usama knows it. "The farmers here have seen many projects and a lot of them have failed, so it is difficult for them to understand that Oxfam, FTDC and the Palestinian Farmer Association's Union are there to work hand-in-hand and for no profits at all. We want this marketing unit to be ultimately controlled by the farmers. At the end of the project, in just over a year, they will have to decide if it becomes a union, a new co-operative or a profit-making company." The fair trade sector is booming in the occupied Palestinian territory, with more initiatives blossoming. The latest one called the Palestinian Fairtrade Network will hopefully bolster the sector by grouping all fairtrade actors together. With recurrent problems such as land confiscation by the Israeli authorities and movement restrictions for farmers and exports, the marketing unit, co-operatives and their farmers will need all the support they can get from donors like the European Commission and the Palestinian Fairtrade Network to ensure Palestinian olive oil meets its global potential. Background: The development of the olive oil sector is critical as it is an important source of food security, labour and cash income for a large sector of the West Bank population. This year alone, the olive industry aims to contribute over £87 million to the fragile West Bank economy - 18 per cent of total agricultural production. Despite the increase of olive oil production in the past few years, many small-scale farmers have not been able to make a decent living due to constraints in exporting produce to traditional markets (Arab countries and Israel). Palestinian olive oil does however have strong international export potential: olive oil experts confirm that if the oil is well produced it can be considered as a unique and flavoursome product able to compete with the best oils from all over the world. Facts:

• In the West Bank and Gaza some 45 per cent of agricultural land (over 900,000 dunums) is planted with an estimated 10 million olive trees with the potential to produce between 32,000-35,000 tons of oil
• Approximately 93 per cent of the olive harvest is used for olive oil, and the remainder for pickles, table olives, and soap
• Up to 100,000 families depend upon the olive harvest for their livelihoods to some extent
• Olive trees make up 80 per cent of orchard areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip
• Total amount of olives to be picked in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip: 128,000 tons
• It costs farmers £2.30 to produce one litre of olive oil. One litre of olive oil is sold from £3.60
• Confiscation of lands: According to The Hague agreement, occupation forces must not confiscate lands or properties from the people under occupation. According to B'T'Selem and Peace Now, since 1967, 132 Israeli settlements have been built in the occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem). The jurisdictional areas of the settlements are defined in military orders as "closed military areas," to which Palestinian entry is forbidden without the military permission. Using a complex legal-bureaucratic system, Israel has set aside about 40 per cent of the West Bank for settlements, primarily to build them and to reserve land for their expansion.

]]> tag:www.oxfam.org.uk,2009:/applications/blogs/palterr_israel//79.3175 2009-05-06T15:32:17Z 2009-05-06T15:50:58Z

Oxfam's Sarah-Eve Hammond met with the Bedouin community in Um El Kher to understand the hardships they face and to find out about the difference Oxfam's new shelter project, run through local partner Rural Center for Sustainable Development (RCSD), is...

Oxfam's Sarah-Eve Hammond met with the Bedouin community in Um El Kher to understand the hardships they face and to find out about the difference Oxfam's new shelter project, run through local partner Rural Center for Sustainable Development (RCSD), is making a difference. The traditional Bedouin lifestyle doesn't exist anymore. The Israeli administration which controls Area C of the West Bank, where most herders in the occupied Palestinian territories live, restricts Palestinian development and imposes rigid systems that severely constrain movement. The inability to move freely, to find grazing land and access markets to sell animals has an impact on the herders by increasing their vulnerability and threatening their food security. The romantic vision of herders moving from camp to camp to graze their animals has now almost totally disappeared in the occupied Palestinian territories. Five main Bedouin tribes live in the West Bank and most of them originate from the Negev desert. Bedouin communities live in isolated areas around Hebron, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Jericho and the Jordan Valley. These herding communities are especially affected by movement restrictions imposed by the Israeli government, lack of infrastructure, proximity to Israeli settlements, rigid building limitations, land confiscations and home demolitions. Consequently, they live in extreme poverty. The village of Um El Kher lies south of Hebron. This Bedouin community of 140 people rely on herding as a main source of income. Bedouin here live next door to an Israeli settlement and are prevented from moving freely. Usually, Bedouin communities move to warmer camp sites during the winter. "We do not do that anymore," says 32-year-old Salma. "We are afraid that if we leave for the winter camp our lands here will be confiscated and used by the settlers." Fatma is getting her donkey ready to fetch water. Like most Bedouin communities, Um el Kher is not connected a water network. Water is bought from private water tankers or from nearby villages and Israeli settlements at an inflated price. There is no quality control over the water supplies bought by herders and very often the storage conditions of water supplies are unhygienic. To add to their struggle, the ongoing drought in the country has severely affected herders. During the 2007-8 winter season, rainfall levels were less than half the average. As a consequence, fewer crops were available for animals to eat and water was scarce, forcing these impoverished Bedouin herders to spend more money on buying fodder and tankered water. Sheikha is in her 50s. She has diabetes and high blood pressure and she hasn't been able to go to the health clinic in Hebron (about an hour from her village of Um el Kher) in four months. "It costs me 60 ILS (£10) every time I need to go. This is too expensive for us and we need this money to buy food." Sheikha's food cupboard is almost empty and anyone can see there is not enough food for the 26 family members who live off one salary. "We get eggs from the chicken," says Sheikha's daughter, Salma. "We have bread and sabanekh [similar to spinach]. Ten years ago we had a lot of animals but my father had to sell them to pay off our debts." With movement restrictions preventing herders from getting to their traditional markets to sell animals and a shrinking ability to use credit, food insecurity increases rapidly. It then becomes difficult for communities to find money to maintain and repair their shelters. Shelters are made from old pieces of fabric and zinc sheets. They offer little protection against the weather. With funds from the European Union Humanitarian Aid Department (DG- ECHO), Oxfam rehabilitated shelters that did not meet the minimum international housing standards. 200 families were selected from four Bedouin communities. Some families were given new weatherproof tents and new concrete shelters. Some Bedouin tents were upgraded by elevating ceilings, extending existing rooms or adding an extra room to give a family more space. In other cases a new zinc shelter with windows and doors was created. The rehabilitated shelters require less maintenance. This allows families to save money they can spend on food, health and education. "Families are happy with the new shelters and the extra space", says Um El Kher's tribal leader. "We are now able to have a living space separated from the kitchen and kids sleep in warmer and cleaner tents. The zinc shelters have windows and shutters and it is amazing to be protected from the wind and cold, while being able to see the sun." Mahmoud Takatqa and Hussein Alqam from Oxfam's partner the Rural Center for Sustainable Development pose in front of a newly completed zinc shelter with Oxfam's Project Officer Feda Husseini. Mahmoud says: "We involved the communities in this project and discussed with them what kind of shelters would be best for their way of life. Very few organisations work with the Bedouin communities in the West Bank and this ECHO-funded initiative gave us the opportunity to show that small changes can have a big impact." "One man, who had his tent rehabilitated with a concrete floor, told me it was the first rainy season in his life he did not have to dig up a trench around the tent to prevent flooding. There is so much to be done in communities like Um El Kher, but we feel this is a good start," concluded Hussein.]]> tag:www.oxfam.org.uk,2009:/applications/blogs/palterr_israel//79.3169 2009-05-05T11:13:34Z 2009-05-05T11:21:04Z

Oxfam's Mohammed Ali Abu Najela reports from the Gaza Strip. Finding work in the Gaza Strip has been a constant challenge since the beginning of the blockade in June 2007. With a high unemployment rate and a trickle of goods...

Oxfam's Mohammed Ali Abu Najela reports from the Gaza Strip. Finding work in the Gaza Strip has been a constant challenge since the beginning of the blockade in June 2007. With a high unemployment rate and a trickle of goods reaching Gaza, Oxfam and Ma'an Development Center came up with creative ways to rehabilitate roads while creating jobs. "We set out to repair 44km of agricultural roads. The main criterion for deciding where to work was that the roads served a large number of farmers and also their families. We targeted four areas (Al Zaitoun, Ash Sheikh 'Ijleen, Al Mughraqa and Juhor and Dik) that we knew were very poor and relied heavily on agriculture," says Ala'a Eid, Food and Livelihood Officer with Oxfam in Gaza. The construction of the roads provided a perfect opportunity to create employment. So Oxfam and Ma'an worked with local committees to find a workforce. But there were certain conditions; the participants would have to be unemployed and responsible for at least six family members. In the end, 930 people were selected to work for 20 half-days. Changing neighbourhood life The project was not without its challenges. The lack of fuel, raw materials, time constraints, unfavourable currency exchange rates and the latest Gaza war are just some of the issues that arose during the project. "Because the Gaza Strip has been under the blockade for so long now, very little materials were available to rehabilitate the roads. Had we decided to wait for the raw materials to come from Israel, we would not have been able to build the roads! So, we had to make do with what was already in Gaza, like rubble from destroyed houses. Our contractor simply collected rubble to create a compact and solid base for the roads," explains Ala'a. Creativity paid off in this case. At the beginning of the rainy season, while most other roads were flooding, farmers were pleased to see that the new roads were holding up and still safe to use. One worker who took part in the project said: "Now that the project is completed, people still commend the quality of the roads we rehabilitated. When it rained a lot recently, my neighbours were still able to use the roads with their cars or carts, which was not the case before. I truly feel proud of my work! I think I made a great contribution to the life of the neighbourhood." Demanding work Rehabilitating agricultural roads is hard, physical work. It involves long hours under the sun shovelling, compacting soil and carrying heavy materials. However, just over 26 per cent of the skilled workers and 8 per cent of unskilled workers were women. "This is a success for us," says Ala'a. "It was a serious challenge because of the nature of the work as well as the traditional barriers, where women in those communities are mostly not allowed to do paid work." The unskilled female workers identified where they could be most useful themselves. "We did not tell them 'this is what you will do," says Elena Qleibo, also a Food and Livelihood Officer for Oxfam. "The women suggested they use their carts and donkeys to transport materials on the site as well as cleaning up. It was very useful work. Skilled women easily found their place as "foremen", nurses for first aid and social workers to help in the house visits we conducted for the baseline survey." Overall, the project provided 2,420 days of paid work for skilled workers, and another 15,350 for unskilled labourers including 2,000 working days for women. "Farmers were eagerly waiting for the end of the project so they could use the agricultural roads and reach the markets quicker," recalls Ala'a. "It was also much better to provide cash-for-work instead of handouts. It was dignifying for the workers. However, I would have liked to have people work with us for more than a month, because for most families it was not a sufficient amount of time to secure enough money to cover all their needs." As a testimony to the success of the project, the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Department (ECHO) has recently asked Oxfam and Ma'an Development Center to extend the cash-for-work project to rehabilitate 55km of roads in Rafah. This project would not have been possible without the financial support of the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Department (DG-ECHO). ]]> tag:www.oxfam.org.uk,2009:/applications/blogs/palterr_israel//79.3165 2009-04-30T13:54:54Z 2009-04-30T14:21:56Z

Oxfam's Sarah-Eve Hammond reports on Oxfam's water and sanitation work in the West Bank. Oxfam's water work has a direct impact on people we help. Latrines and water tanks are built, sewage networks are rehabilitated and hygiene promotion sessions explaining...

Oxfam's Sarah-Eve Hammond reports on Oxfam's water and sanitation work in the West Bank. Oxfam's water work has a direct impact on people we help. Latrines and water tanks are built, sewage networks are rehabilitated and hygiene promotion sessions explaining the why and how of basic hygiene practices are held. This is what we do. It is straightforward and it changes people's lives. My visit to Qarawat Beni Hassan, north of Nablus, in the West Bank, was aimed at discussing just that. Oxfam and the European Commission for Humanitarian Aid wanted to know how their recent work in the village - the construction of a new 500 cubic metre water tank - had made a positive impact on the community. We sat with Um Oday who is in her late 30s and full of energy. She explained to us how the village had learned about hygiene practices as a result of the project and how people, especially women, were mobilising themselves to clean roof water tanks. The village had previously been dependent on an Israeli water supplier, to the new water tank providing a regular supply of water has made a huge difference to the village. She explained how farmers will be able to irrigate their lands even during the summer and how families will always have enough water in their homes. Um Oday had no idea she also was about to give us a great example of women's empowerment. In the conservative village of Qarawat Beni Hassan, Um Oday is Oxfam's first port of call for organising hygiene promotion activities with local community mobilisers. The group meets to attend training sessions and to plan future activities. They also meet to talk about their lives. "You can't imagine how women feel during the meetings", says Um Oday. "At first they were talking about anything and everything because they have been isolated for so long. These meetings on hygiene promotion activities are actually the only opportunity women have to talk about what they go through on a daily basis. It's a big change in itself to gather so many women. They accept to leave their houses despite the conservatism in the village that says that women are to stay at home and have children. "I think the women slowly feel more empowered but this all takes time. Oxfam and ECHO are the first here to work with us women. We are an important part of the project because we do the hygiene promotion in the village. "We now understand that in the past we did not have the right hygiene practices at home. One example is that we did not clean our rooftop water tanks, which contributed to contamination and made our kids sick. Nobody had ever told us that it needed to be done! "This project challenged the village in a positive way. Oxfam helped the municipality to understand that women had to be part of the hygiene promotion. In fact it was one of the conditions for building the water reservoir. The women here need this support. I am thankful for this project, not only because the 6,000 people in Qarawat will be able to get clean water more regularly, but also because this emergency intervention has given me the strength and confidence to go to meetings at the municipality. I now mix with men and they have to listen to me when I speak. I feel a little bit more like a leader. "Us women missed out on so many opportunities in the past because we were unable to have our voices heard. "There are many things I want to achieve and I want to become a decision maker. I also want to take part in the next municipal elections and if I manage this I will devote my time to organising activities for women."]]> tag:www.oxfam.org.uk,2009:/applications/blogs/palterr_israel//79.3161 2009-04-27T15:13:07Z 2009-04-27T16:14:16Z

Palestinian farmers in the West Bank face numerous challenges, writes Michael Robin Bailey. Mohammad, Nail and Khader are in a bind. Oxfam, the European Union and local Palestinian organisation the Economic and Social Development Center of Palestine (ESDC) are helping...

Palestinian farmers in the West Bank face numerous challenges, writes Michael Robin Bailey. Mohammad, Nail and Khader are in a bind. Oxfam, the European Union and local Palestinian organisation the Economic and Social Development Center of Palestine (ESDC) are helping them. All three of these North Jordan Valley Palestinians are trying to make ends meet. They are trying to raise their families. They are trying to work their way out of poverty. They are trying to get away from dependence on scarce and unreliable day labouring work. The road through the Palestinian West Bank winds between ancient hills. Spring has brushed the stony slopes with a temporary wash of translucent green. Further north the vegetation gets lush. Roadsides are fresh with carpets of mauve and pink flowers. It's a strange place for an emergency project. Mustafa, my food security colleague from Oxfam, explains that most of the year it is very different. The land north east of Nablus is semi-arid, the water is scarce and the local economy is directly affected. He talks about the economic shocks that besiege Palestinian farmers. I learn that last year communities in the area between Nablus and Tubas were running out of options. Drought, together with movement restrictions imposed by the Israeli government, was increasing costs for farmers and herders, therefore reducing their earnings. In Al Aqrabaniya we stop at the side of a single-track road. Mohammed from ESDC and Suliman from the village council introduce us to Mohammad Sa'ed Assansour. He grows beans, peas and cabbages on six dunums (one and a quarter acres) that slope in a narrow strip up from the road. Last year drought threatened to wipe out his smallholding. With funding from theEuropean Union Humanitarian Aid Department (DG-ECHO), Oxfam has been running an emergency project to provide seeds and irrigation pipes for one dunum of land. This has reduced Mohammad's expenses and has helped him get more from the land he farms. He has also benefited from training provided locally for him and 130 small-scale farmers. An agricultural expert visits regularly to check on Mohammad's crops and give advice. Mohammad says that this project helps him to cope. He lives with the constant fear of another disaster like the end of 2000, when the second Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation broke out. Tighter movement restrictions imposed by the Israeli administration cost Mohammad his job as a truck driver and plunged him, along with his community, into nine years of poverty and uncertainty. Two years ago Mohammad decided to put his effort into farming instead of relying on what he could earn from day labouring and the whole family got involved. It was a difficult choice. Back then a slight easing of movement restrictions made markets more accessible and profit from farming still possible. Even so it has been hard. Half of everything Mohammad and his family grow belongs to the owner of the land, under the share cropping agreement they have. The hill that sits above Al Far'a is like a yellow cloud. Flowers like English buttercups sway in the breeze. They are rich grazing for Khaled Mahmoud Subah's flock of 20 sheep and ten lambs. The emergency project provided fodder, a kit of veterinary medicines and extra training in animal husbandry at a critical time last year when fewer crops were available for grazing due to the drought. Sheep are a long-term investment. Khaled started with four sheep four years ago and has built his flock carefully since then. He thinks that in another four or five years he will have 50 sheep, enough to provide the main source of income for his family of ten. It's not straightforward. Just recently Khaled lost two ewes, both pregnant with twins, despite paying £100 for veterinary help. It's a familiar setback. For Khaled it's been a long struggle to get this far. Before the second Palestinian uprising Khaled was earning good money on building sites in Tel Aviv. But just like Mohammad, Khaled eventually lost his job in Israel when the Israeli government made it impossible for him to move freely. Khaled's income fell from £200 to £25 a week. The emergency project has helped to safeguard his long climb back into supporting his family. These two household heads are amongst the 300 that were helped to withstand the immediate affects of drought last year. Their stories are typical. The help provided to small-scale farmers improved their income. Providing families with small greenhouses gives them an additional way to earn money and guarantee fresh food. Fodder and veterinary medicines keep valuable livestock healthy. All these are supported by training and follow up advice from agricultural and veterinary specialists working for the local partner ESDC. All the farmers agree it's a very good use of European Union emergency aid. I asked Mohamed what was most useful, "All of it", he said.]]> tag:www.oxfam.org.uk,2009:/applications/blogs/palterr_israel//79.3127 2009-04-03T10:27:51Z 2009-04-03T10:46:27Z

Oxfam's Michael Robin Bailey reports from the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip. A truckload of Pampers is driven into the Kerem Shalom crossing ahead of us. One consignment of 36 wooden pallets piled to a height...

Oxfam's Michael Robin Bailey reports from the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip. A truckload of Pampers is driven into the Kerem Shalom crossing ahead of us. One consignment of 36 wooden pallets piled to a height of 160 cm. Not enough to meet the household needs in Gaza where 170 babies are born every day. "We have seen a lot of Pampers and toilet rolls recently," confides the Israeli army major who is assigned to liaise with the humanitarian community. Also macaroni and spaghetti now that they have been approved at the political level of the Israeli administration. I am here with 13 colleagues from the humanitarian community, three middle ranking Israeli soldiers and the manager of Kerem Shalom. 20 adults earnestly discussing baby nappies and the security significance of pasta. Meanwhile inside Gaza 8,000 families are waiting for the materials to rebuild the homes that were destroyed nearly three months ago. It has been a long drive to get here. Nearly two hours from Jerusalem including half an hour on the road since we passed the turn off to Karni's purpose build commercial crossing in and out of Gaza. The Israeli government closed the Karni crossing in June 2007 after Hamas took control of Gaza. Since then all of Gaza's supplies have been rerouted 40 kilometres further south. Once they are inside Gaza the supplies are taken 40 kilometres back north to the Gaza City area where most of the population live. Half an hour provides time to do the maths and think about the answer. 700 trucks a week driving 40 kilometres further to use Kerem Shalom. That is 28,000 extra kilometres driven, and the same again inside Gaza every week. It adds up to nearly three million kilometres a year, using two million litres of diesel, over a million pounds' worth at local prices. We stand in the wind that is blowing straight across from Egypt, less than 200 metres away. Two truck drivers bicker, pushing one another in the queue to get their paperwork checked. Once one is cleared he drives his truck another 100 metres into the complex. We follow in our white UN bus, complete with a pile of blue helmets and body armour on the back seat in case there is an attack while we are here. Kerem Shalom is in an Israeli military area at the intersection of Gaza, Israel and Egypt. Palestinian armed groups have frequently targeted it in the past. A year ago a suicide bomber detonated a truckload of explosives. That shut the crossing for months. We are reminded that this is also where Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was abducted over 1,000 days ago. Policy won't change until he has been freed we have been told. Kerem Shalom's operations manager says his main aim is getting humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza. However, he always gives priority to security, "If there is any danger for people, I will close the crossing immediately." He describes how his operation is hemmed in. On one side, by problems getting his Palestinian workers to work on time, "Hamas is controlling everything, they hold up the workers coming from Gaza." On the other hand he is ordered to manage up to 150 trucks a day although he says he could handle 400 or 500. "It depends on the policy." Since June 2007, the Israeli government policy is that nothing other than humanitarian aid goes into Gaza. A truck drives away from unloading area B with several pallets still on board. Tell-tale X shaped cuts in the packaging have revealed cosmetics instead of hygiene supplies. Rejected as not humanitarian in nature. On the ground in area B are lines of pallets loaded with goods that have passed the inspection. They have been offloaded from the Israeli trucks. Now they wait here for area B to be sealed and the shuttle to take them on the next stage of their journey. On the other side of the concrete screen the shuttle is at work in area A. Kerem Shalom works its pair of unloading areas in sequence. One is filled while the other empties. We troop off to the manager's office to see the next stages of the operation projected onto his wall. Our host toggles the control of a remote camera to zoom in on a shuttle of sterile trucks. We look down on the empty lorries as they return from the Palestinian loading area just a hundred metres or so further in towards the Gaza Strip. They trundle into area B to be loaded and return to the Palestinian side to be unloaded minutes later. All day long they shuttle. Every piece of humanitarian aid has been loaded onto a pallet, wrapped in plastic and labelled before it began its long journey to Kerem Shalom. It has been unloaded from one truck onto the ground. It has been loaded onto the shuttle truck and unloaded again. Towards the end of the day it will be picked up a third time to be loaded finally onto a Palestinian truck to be taken into Gaza. The manager's wall reveals one further feature of Kerem Shalom's armoury against smuggling and bombs. In a separate concrete-walled compound, whole truckloads of pallets can be x-rayed. Smuggling is a real concern. Its not just lipstick and aftershave. Spare truck tyres have been found packed with computer chips. A fake bomb was spotted just days before, "Israeli security put that in there to test us and we found it." Our host and his team are keeping one step ahead of the businessmen and the security services that are trying to catch them out. One final question, "If I have a truck load of children's sports shoes, will they be allowed in?" I ask. The major will have to see, and if there is a problem he will ask his superiors he tells us. "So is there a list you will check?" The major seems weary, "The list, the list, you are always asking for a list." If there is one it seems we shall not be getting a copy. We shall continue to do our best. Each of us in our own sterile compartment. Shut off by concrete and policy from the others. Drip feeding a million and a half people suspended in dependency while we wait for the policy to change so that they can take care of themselves.]]> tag:www.oxfam.org.uk,2009:/applications/blogs/palterr_israel//79.3116 2009-03-20T10:56:54Z 2009-03-20T10:57:54Z

Oxfam's food distributions and cash-for-work programmes are helping families in Gaza get back on their feet after the recent three week war with Israel, writes Michael Robin Bailey. "That hill behind those buildings there is in Egypt". It looks close...

Oxfam's food distributions and cash-for-work programmes are helping families in Gaza get back on their feet after the recent three week war with Israel, writes Michael Robin Bailey. "That hill behind those buildings there is in Egypt". It looks close enough to touch. I'm in Rafah. The southern end of the Gaza Strip. We are talking with local community committees about cash and work. There is not much of either in Gaza at the moment. There hasn't been for the last 20 months since the Israeli blockade began. That started when Hamas took over. The blockade killed jobs, stopped cash coming in and pushed prices up. The recent three week war raised levels of misery and cost even higher. Sufian who is the chair of the Rafah Fishermen's Committee talks about $300,000. He explains that is what their 300 fishing families have just lost. That was the value of the boats, nets, motors, tractors, warehouse and sheds bombed where they stood on the beach. Even the plastic boxes they put the fish in are gone. Some of this community will be eligible for short term jobs. Cash for Work. Oxfam and local partner organisation Ma'an are here to start a cash-for-work scheme. We tour the Al Mawasi area bouncing down the uneven sandy tracks between hedges of spiky cacti. These agricultural roads criss-cross the coastal area. They are used by children to get to school as well as by farmers. Our cash-for-work scheme will level 50 km and surface them with rubble. They will then be usable all year round and in all weathers. No more arriving at school muddy or covered in dust. No more being unable to get crops to market. The work will provide 20 days' income for 1,028 family breadwinners. They will be able to reduce debts they have built up during the blockade of Gaza. We pass one school. It is a collection of blue painted metal containers. Windows and doors have been cut in their corrugated sides. They must be boiling hot in summer and freezing in winter. Even so, these have been classrooms for an entire generation. They have been here since 1987. What was once temporary has become permanent like so many inadequate things in Gaza. The next day, I am surrounded by cauliflowers. I have missed the women on food aid distribution day in Gaza City. They came early and are already home. The men who come to collect their family food parcel don't want to stop to discuss this new experience. I talk instead to the seven men who have found temporary work here. They pack the fresh vegetables and fruit into household bundles. Three kilograms of onions, a cauliflower, five kilos of tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, cucumbers, oranges, lettuce, a kilo of frozen meat and 30 eggs in a tray on top. Ingredients here for a local favourite, Aijin - a pancake made with cauliflower, meat, potato and eggs fried with chilli. Ahmed from Burej refugee camp tells me this is the first work he has had for more than a year. How does his family manage? They scrape by, a little help from relatives, food aid like this, running up debts. It's not easy. Raed's story is the same. His two sons have families of their own so they can't help very often. Ahmad Abu Ali tells me the food he takes home from this job is more important than the money. "It's enough for my family for the week". The irony is that Ahmad has land himself, four dunums and a greenhouse where he used to grow tomatoes and cucumber. He hasn't been able to use it for three years now. It's too close to the border. He would be shot if he went there. He tells me "I hope the job lasts long enough for me to pay off my debts". He has another eight weeks of work left. This is Gaza now, still looking anxiously skywards at the roar of jets overhead. Making do with less because the need is much more now after the war. Isolated alongside Hamas people ask why they are being punished for rockets they do not control. Asked who would win Palestinian elections they said they doubted there would be Palestinian elections. They said it made no difference with Israel in charge of everything in their lives.]]> tag:www.oxfam.org.uk,2009:/applications/blogs/palterr_israel//79.3111 2009-03-18T10:26:40Z 2009-03-18T10:56:57Z

Thanks to the financial support of the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Department (DG-ECHO), Oxfam GB and its partner Ma'an Development Center have rehabilitated 46 kilometres of agricultural roads in four areas of the Gaza Strip. This project has created temporary...

Thanks to the financial support of the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Department (DG-ECHO), Oxfam GB and its partner Ma'an Development Center have rehabilitated 46 kilometres of agricultural roads in four areas of the Gaza Strip. This project has created temporary paid work to 920 people, who were previously unemployed. Oxfam's Mohammed Ali met with Ahmed Hamdi Heji to see how the project has helped him and his family to cope with the harsh living conditions prevailing in the Gaza Strip following the most recent war. Ahmed Hamdi Heji is 40 years old. He lives in Al Mughraqa, south of Gaza city with his wife and 11 children. Ahmed used to work in a cement block factory but lost his job two years ago, when the Israeli government imposed a blockade on Gaza - it became impossible for his employer to import the raw materials needed from Israel. "I used to get 50 ILS (12 US dollars) per day at the factory. It was not a lot, but I was happy with the work and I could provide for my family. Since I lost my only source of income, I have relied entirely on my father and brothers-in-law." Last December, Ahmed took part in the Oxfam-Ma'an cash-for-work agricultural roads rehabilitation project for 20 half-days. "I was so happy to take part in this project. I knew it was only going to be for a short period of time but you cannot imagine how much it meant for me to leave the house and go to work every morning after two years of being unemployed." "I worked really hard and I think my contribution was appreciated. It was much better than staying at home." "Now that the project is completed, people still commend the quality of the roads we rehabilitated. When it rained a lot recently, my neighbours were still able to use the roads with their cars or carts, which was not the case before. I feel truly proud of my work! I think I made a great contribution to neighbourhood life." "I used the money I earned, to pay off some of the debts I had at the grocer and I used the rest to buy some essentials for the family. "The price of meat and chicken rose really quickly during the latest war in Gaza. I still cannot afford to buy it. And on top of that my home was partially destroyed by the Israeli military. All the furniture was wrecked and we cannot even live in the apartment anymore." "Even if I had the money I am not sure I could rebuild the damaged parts. Building materials are banned from entering the Gaza Strip." Ahmed's wife Sheifa has noticed the impact of the programme."This project was such a positive thing in our lives. My husband was working hard, he felt confident and the kids were happy to see their father like this. Now, we are hopeful for more opportunities like this one, but in the meantime my husband has to rely on his father and my brothers." With rising food prices, demolished houses to rebuild, injured relatives to tend to, there are feelings of deep insecurity in many families. The need for more projects like the Oxfam-ECHO cash-for-wor programme is pressing. Sheifa concludes: "When you came to visit us during the project we were much closer to being able to buy windows and doors for the house. Since the war, we realised that Ahmed would need a full year of work to pay for reconstructing the house! We are starting from scratch again and it is difficult."]]> tag:www.oxfam.org.uk,2009:/applications/blogs/palterr_israel//79.3053 2009-02-16T09:43:00Z 2009-02-17T09:44:21Z

Three weeks after both sides declared a ceasefire, the effects of further Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli missile strikes are being felt across the Gaza Strip, writes Michael Robin Bailey. I am standing next to the drinking water well in...

Three weeks after both sides declared a ceasefire, the effects of further Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli missile strikes are being felt across the Gaza Strip, writes Michael Robin Bailey. I am standing next to the drinking water well in El Atattara. There is a big jagged hole in the wall. Large enough to climb through. A second smaller hole in an internal wall shows the trajectory of the missile inside the pump house. The mess inside has been cleaned up since yesterday morning. The wrecked electrical control panel has been replaced by water utility engineers. Outside, the huge orange generator sits smashed, awaiting repair. Shrapnel holes in the diesel tank have already been welded over. Above, electricity cables have been stripped from the road side pylon by the missile as it travelled from helicopter to the drinking water well. Across a muddy road some of the 10,000 people the drinking water well serves live in 86 damp white tents. Their sleep had been disturbed the previous night. The clatter of the helicopter woke them. The explosion of the missile jolted them upright. I wonder what they felt so soon after losing their homes to similar explosions. Three weeks after the Israeli and Hamas ceasefires comes a further reminder not to fire rockets at Israeli towns. Ha'aretz newspaper tells readers 'On Monday (9 February 2009), the Israel Air Force hit two Hamas positions in Gaza in response to rocket attacks on Israel launched by militants in the coastal strip on the preceding day, the army said.' Nine other drinking water wells had been destroyed during the three week war in Gaza. The water utility spokesman tells me that 300,000 people in North Gaza still have no running drinking water supply. They rely on water brought daily by tankers. Some tankers are organised by humanitarian agencies such as Oxfam. Others are operated by merchants who charge high prices. I have come here to see this latest damage in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Gaza. Earlier I was looking at the aftermath of damage caused during the war three weeks ago. I was in the rural district of Sheikh Adjlin to meet Mohammed Haidil. He showed me where a hole blown in the wall of a waste water treatment lake had released a torrent of sand and sewage. Mohammed dug into the sand covering his fields. His hoe brought up foul smelling black slime everywhere he dug it in. He had vainly dug the sand and sewage from around each of his olive trees. "They are already dead. The roots have been burned by the sewage. All of this is dead." His hand swept in an arc taking in the fields all around us. The top branches of trees stuck through the sand like bare bushes. What was recently a small valley was now a flat dead expanse drowned by sand and sewage. Mohammed showed me into a small brick hut. His agricultural water well is full of sewage water. The black hole in the concrete floor will be useless for more than a year now. The pump which drew water from it is already gone. It was ruined when the sewage flood inundated Mohammed's land. Mohammed does not know how he will recover his land. All the sand and sewage will have to be dug out. The land will need time to recover. The olive trees and the almond trees will have to be replaced. 13,000 farmers in Gaza now face starting again. Rehabilitating their ruined land. Rebuilding their crushed greenhouses. Redigging their agricultural wells. In Palestine land is measured in dunums. Rehabilitation of farmland is measured in thousands of dollars. One and a half thousand dollars per dunum for a field. Three times as much for greenhouses. Dunums are not very big. You get four in an acre. Mohammed has had six dunums wrecked by the sewage flood. Not much but it was all he had to earn his living. All he had to feed his children. Now what will he do? He doesn't know. Neither do I. War damage to Gaza's water and sanitation services will cost an estimated six million dollars. The latest Israeli military airstrike on a drinking water well comes before a comprehensive repair programme has even started. Doctors I talked to this week told me that the number of stomach and respiratory infections are rising week by week. People in Gaza are exhausted by 20 months of blockade and three weeks of intense conflict. Further rockets and missiles will not help them. Failure to release kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit or the Palestinians held as political prisoners or without trial in Israeli administrative detention will not help them. Continued restrictions on humanitarian aid flows or fuel into the market in Gaza will not help them. A new political will to see the blockade lifted, the prisoners freed and the Palestinian rockets and Israeli missiles being stopped could help them. But people have lost hope and no one in Gaza asks me when that might be.]]> tag:www.oxfam.org.uk,2009:/applications/blogs/palterr_israel//79.3036 2009-02-04T10:03:10Z 2009-02-09T10:05:31Z

Whatever the politicians say, civilians - both Palestinian and Israeli - feel they are under attack, writes Oxfam's Michael Robin Bailey. I'm in Gaza for the second time since the ceasefires. I'm meeting six people who just survived a war....

Whatever the politicians say, civilians - both Palestinian and Israeli - feel they are under attack, writes Oxfam's Michael Robin Bailey. I'm in Gaza for the second time since the ceasefires. I'm meeting six people who just survived a war. I'm hearing about school yard panic. The first missiles struck Gaza City just as schools were emptying. School children, teachers and parents didn't know whether to stay in the school yard or go into the street. I'm told of a wrong decision at one city centre school that cost 10 young lives. An Israeli missile struck the road as children were hurrying to get away. I'm also talking with parents ashamed as they cried in fear in front of their children. "My husband said I should be strong for them, but I thought we were going to die. We were the last family left in the apartment building. The tanks were coming up from the end of the road. We all crowded into the UN compound and watched the tank shells hitting the apartments we had just left." I ask them what you tell your children at a moment like this. "I said we are in a war." Who is fighting whom? I ask. The reply says nothing of Hamas, its all about civilians. "They are fighting us, civilians. They are angry with us and they want to punish us." I can't really argue back, I wasn't there. I can tell them about my trip to the Israeli town of Sderot (in Israel) during the war. I tell them about the incoming rocket warning and hearing the detonations while I was still hurrying to the shelter. They seem surprised. It's news from another world, ten kilometres away. Another world they cannot visit because the Israeli government will not let them leave Gaza. I tell them what I heard in Sderot. Left wing Israeli people told me they didn't like what was happening to civilians in Gaza. They said they could hear the explosions and feel the ground shake. But they wanted the war on civilians in Sderot, the rockets from Gaza, to stop. Once again there was no talk of Hamas. "Our kids are told Arabs shoot the rockets, Arabs are bad." Gaza is a small place. Three weeks of Israeli bombardment and battling with Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups on the ground has left its mark everywhere I look. On the way south from the Erez crossing to Gaza, I pass through Ezbet Abed Rabou. Here every house has been reduced to a pile of broken concrete. Coloured towels, blankets, carpets and mattresses sandwiched between tons of flat grey slabs. The bright paint of bedroom walls exposed to public stare. An old man brews tea on a wood fire outside his personal mound of rubble. "Yes, " he says "Hamas gave me money and Oxfam gave me water and the UN gave me food. I don't want any of it, I want my house back." Further into Gaza City I pass car repair workshops with their roofs blown open. Factories scarred by shell blasts and filled with twisted metal. A cement works with 13 cement mixers and yellow industrial tractors pushed onto their sides like children's toys. The owner is stunned, his private business, his expensive machinery, destroyed by Israeli tanks and bulldozers. "No work for 19 months because of the blockade and now this, why?" I travel on to the Zaitoun farm lands. Amidst the wreckage of churned up mud and felled trees, an immense tangle of wire and white feathers. I have been here before. Oxfam bought 15,000 eggs a week here to distribute to the poorest families in Gaza City. Samiha's 65,000 chickens were crushed to death when Israeli bulldozers destroyed his farm. Samiha is not alone, all around are ruined farms, mangled greenhouses and ripped up fields. I'm due at Barcelona Park, a public space in Talet El Hawa, South Gaza City, for an interview with Al Jazeera TV. I'm asked about the humanitarian need. Is the crossing at Kerem Shalom, south of the Gaza territory, adequate? "No, it's in the wrong place, it's too small and its wasting aid money, more than $1,000 for every truck, $3 million a month wasted", I reply. The backdrop to the interview is a large crater. An Israeli missile in the middle of the Park buried two basketball courts. Israeli tanks clawed up the playing surface of the football ground. The 15 metre lighting poles are flattened. Around the devastated park shell blasts mark the facades of residential apartment buildings. The shells have punched away balconies, windows and walls. The private details of people's homes are on public view here as well. I am still struggling to explain the devastation I have seen. Palestinian civilians I talk to in Gaza feel they were the focus of the Israeli military offensive. Israeli civilians in Sderot feel they are the target of rockets from Gaza. Civilians on both sides feel they are under attack whatever the politicians say. That is what scares me most of all in Gaza today, the vulnerability of all these innocent civilians.]]> tag:www.oxfam.org.uk,2009:/applications/blogs/palterr_israel//79.3019 2009-01-29T11:09:56Z 2009-01-29T11:45:38Z

On Sunday 25 January, John Prideaux-Brune, Director of Oxfam's programme in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel, was finally granted access into Gaza. There he was able to meet his colleagues and Oxfam programmes and see the impact of the...

On Sunday 25 January, John Prideaux-Brune, Director of Oxfam's programme in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel, was finally granted access into Gaza. There he was able to meet his colleagues and Oxfam programmes and see the impact of the recent Israeli military offensive.Here, he tells us in his own words and images what the situation was like. The road to Ezbet Abed Rabooh is now lined wtih piles of rubbish. Photo: John Prideaux-Brune I was on my way to Ezbet Abed Rabooh where piles of rubble lined either side of the road. On the left hand side, you can see that people have made a makeshift shelter. These people are among the 28,000 people that the United Nations estimates have been made homeless as a result of the Israeli military offensive on Gaza. In total 4,000 homes have been totally demolished and another 20,000 damaged. Sadly, this is an all too familiar image in Al Salaam area. Photo: John Prideaux-Brune Nothing prepared me for what I was about to see. The level of destruction in the north and east of the Gaza Strip was shocking; in some areas, all houses have been completely flattened with little left standing for miles around. The Al Salam district of Jabalia where Oxfam has had water and sanitation programmes, has been devastated. This area and countless others in Gaza are in desperate need of materials so that essential reconstruction can begin. But much is being denied entry by the Israeli government. This power line is one of the many to have been hit during the Israeli military offensive on Gaza. Photo: John Prideaux-Brune Many power lines have been destroyed cutting off hundreds of thousands of people from electricity. Water and sanitation pipelines have also been damaged leaving the majority of the population without water and a working sewage system. This is one of the water tanks that Oxfam is using to distribute water to thousands of people in need. Photo: John Prideaux-Brune The hygiene kits that Oxfam will be distributing this week and the water tankering which we will continue over the next month will help people in the coming weeks but spare parts must be allowed into Gaza so that people can have a functioning water system and have clean water to drink, wash, clean and cook with. A man in the Al Salaam area shows me water tanks like the ones Oxfam distributed last April which have now been destroyed. Photo: John Prideaux-Brune This man showed me water tanks, which were also destroyed, along with hundreds of people's homes in this area. Some of the pipe work which Oxfam worked on in the past has also been damaged, leaving people in this area with little means to get clean water aside from Oxfam's water trucking which is reaching up to 80,000 people a day. Here my colleague Kamal and his mother stand outside their damaged home. Photo: John Prideaux-Brune My colleague Kamal took me to see his home in Beit Hanoun, which was severely damaged during the Israeli military incursion. Kamal's home now has no roof and there are holes in the walls. Mahmoud Jaber Abu Al-Fahem stands in what is left of his home. Photo: John Prideaux-Brune I met Mahmod Jaber Abu Al-Fahem who has decided to live amongst the rubble of what was once his home. He is trying to make the best he can of what is left, but as you can see this is very little. He told me that his wife and children couldn't live here, which is why they are staying with relatives. Oxfam is filling up the water tank behind him so that he at least has clean water to drink, cook and wash with. Oxfam partner, Ma'an Development Centre, prepares food parcels for a distribution. Photo: John Prideaux-Brune Here, our partners are sorting out food parcels, which are being distributed to the most vulnerable families in Gaza. They contain 14 different food items such as canned meat, tuna, milk, tea, salt, sugar and cooking oil. When I entered this distribution centre I saw queues of people waiting to receive these essential items. Here, I am finding out from partners and Oxfam colleagues how our work is going. Photo: Oxfam In this photo I am talking with Fadi from Ma'an Development Centre. Ma'an are working with Oxfam to distribute food, which we have imported from the West Bank to families in Gaza, as there is not enough food getting in to Gaza to meet people's needs. I went to shops just around the corner and the shelves were empty. Crossings into Gaza need to be opened by the Israeli government so that more food can get in to Gaza to meet the needs of the people. People leaving the distribution centre with food for their families. Photo: John Prideaux-Brune Outside this distribution centre families who have collected their food parcels are leaving. Each food parcel is enough for a family of seven, for two weeks. Our partners are doing a great job and are keen to scale up their work with your support. Learn more about Oxfam's response]]> tag:www.oxfam.org.uk,2009:/applications/blogs/palterr_israel//79.3011 2009-01-28T09:28:44Z 2009-01-28T09:31:16Z

Elena Qleibo works in the Gaza Strip as a Food Security and Livelihood Officer for Oxfam. She talks about her work in the Strip, as Oxfam starts an emergency response to reach thousands of families who were unable to get...

Elena Qleibo works in the Gaza Strip as a Food Security and Livelihood Officer for Oxfam. She talks about her work in the Strip, as Oxfam starts an emergency response to reach thousands of families who were unable to get access to humanitarian aid during in the past three weeks. When I visited the north of Gaza to plan for work we can do with communities there I saw for myself the extent of the damage. There were non-exploded bombs in Jabalia, agricultural lands were completely devastated. In some places, the roads are so damaged it is impossible to move about by car. And sewage wastewater is still flowing down the streets. Some 35,000 chickens were killed during the bombardment and the price of eggs has already gone up. Before the war, a kilo of eggs used to sell for 2.40 Euros (£2.20), now in some places people pay up to 5 euros (£4.60), yet more reason why our work is needed. But the worst thing I saw was just outside of Beit Lahia (North East of Gaza Strip) in the area of Atta Abed Rabo. I could not recognise Beit Lahia! Entire neighbourhoods have disappeared. In place of houses and street there is nothing. It's like looking at fields of ruins. I cannot imagine how long it will take to rebuild. How much money will be needed. The people of Atta Abed Rabo have suddenly lost everything. This community is composed of original residents of Gaza, who were here before the influx of refugees in 1948. They were the middle class and now even they are badly affected. I met a family who lost their house and the taxi cars that constituted their only source of income. When I met them they were sitting in front in the rubble where their house used to be, preparing tea on a small burner. They are not used to receiving aid, as they were among those donating to charities like Dr. Risek's. They don't understand what has happened, they are still in shock. Relieved to be working The food distribution is going well. So far, we have reached 2,100 families in the past three days. Our partner Maan Development Center is very active in co-ordinating with food wholesalers, the packing of the goods and organising with the local committees helping us with the distribution. It is so important to have a strong local partner in such an operation and Maan is implementing this project with much commitment. Fadi, whom I have known for years, is the Director for Maan's office in Gaza. He's been travelling with me, visiting communities and families who are part of our project. However tiring the work is, he is always willing to do more to help more people. We still have another 1,150 parcels of tinned goods and other items that don't need cooking to deliver next week. By then, more than 22,000 people will have benefited from the project. My colleague Yasser has been organising water tankers to distribute water across North Gaza and Gaza City in the last few days. Since 17 January, Oxfam and CMWU (Coastal Municipalities Water Utility) have distributed drinking water to over 150,000 people. They visit UN shelters, hospitals and also do house to house water distribution. The water and wastewater network has been severely damaged by shelling and bombing and hundreds of thousands of people have no access to running water, so CMWU directs us to the areas that are most in need. My colleagues and I are relieved to be working now, going out and about with distributions, but there is so much to be done, so much devastation. It will be a long recovery and we are doing what we can here. But the needs are enormous so that full and complete humanitarian access must be granted to the outside world in order to give the 1.5 million Gazans more than just a glimmer of hope.]]> tag:www.oxfam.org.uk,2009:/applications/blogs/palterr_israel//79.3010 2009-01-27T09:27:48Z 2009-01-28T09:28:40Z

Elena Qleibo works in the Gaza Strip as a Food Security and Livelihood Officer for Oxfam. She talks about her work in the Strip, as Oxfam starts an emergency response to reach thousands of families who were unable to get...

Elena Qleibo works in the Gaza Strip as a Food Security and Livelihood Officer for Oxfam. She talks about her work in the Strip, as Oxfam starts an emergency response to reach thousands of families who were unable to get access to humanitarian aid during in the past three weeks. Communities in Gaza are struggling with heavy losses that are difficult for most people to imagine. Some have lost their homes, their businesses and their loved ones. Most people I have met so far are in a state of shock and find it almost impossible, at this stage, to pick up the pieces of their lives. Two days ago, whilst I was with our partner Maan Development Center, who help us with the food distributions, we came across a glimmer of hope and inspiration amidst so much devastation. Like all civilians in Gaza, Dr. Risek had been living in a state between life and death during the three-week conflict. Instead of thinking only of his own well-being and that of his family, he and other volunteers immediately came to the aid of their fellow Gazans, cooking meals for thousands of people everyday over an open fire. He recruited professional cooks who used to work in Israel before the start of the blockade and who are now unemployed. This initiative originally started some six months ago when Dr. Risek decided to help by cooking for hospital patients, single women who are not able to leave their homes and also for elderly people. When the conflict started in late December, Dr. Risek decided to help those seeking refuge in UN schools. Sometimes he and his team prepare meals for 1,000 people, sometimes more. Dr. Risek's story encourages me in my own work as I try to maintain a positive outlook despite the misery I see around me. Ever since it's been safe to leave my home I have been meeting people, visiting food warehouses and making the arrangements needed for us to distribute food to thousands of families in Gaza City. It has been difficult and frustrating work because we are never sure when the lull would be or what areas would be safe to visit. Whenever I fell like despairing I think of Dr. Risek's volunteers.]]> tag:www.oxfam.org.uk,2009:/applications/blogs/palterr_israel//79.3005 2009-01-22T16:45:36Z 2009-01-26T16:48:48Z

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...

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.]]>