Feeding the Hungry in Gaza
Beach Camp, Gaza

By Conal Urquhart

If you look out across the Mediterranean from the coast of Gaza at night time, you can see a distant illuminated highway on the horizon. It is not a road but Gaza’s fishing fleet spread in a line with lanterns hoist above the boats to attract fish to their nets.

Three months ago, Ibrahim Abu Amir,30, left his boat anchored on the “highway”. When he returned the next morning, his boat was gone and his nets lost. He believes that his boat was destroyed by the Israeli coast guard although he doesn’t know why.

Since then, he has had great difficulty in providing for his extended family, a total of 16 people living in three rooms, in a concrete-walled and asbestos-roofed shack, metres from the sea in Gaza’s Beach Refugee Camp. They, like 1.1 million Palestinians rely on food aid distributed by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

The Intifada which began in October 2000, has had a massive effect on the economy of Gaza. It was a poor region before, but the economic sanctions and military pressure imposed on the Strip by the Israeli government mean that it is almost completely dependent on outside aid for survival.

Abu Amir has been fishing since the age of 11 when he became head of his family after his father left to marry another woman.

“Before the Intifada I used to earn 500 shekels($116) a week now its less than 100. Before, according to the Oslo agreement, I could fish out for ten miles and all along the coast from Egypt and as far north as Ashdod [in southern Israel]. Me and my brother would set out every morning at 5am and maybe fish for around four hours. Some times we would fish for sardines and get as much as 20 kilograms and sometimes we would fish for other things and get nothing,” he said.

Although poor, the family had a good diet because it was supplemented by the fish the brothers caught. However in the last three years, the Israeli government has restricted the fishing area available, prevented boats from leaving the shore and on occasions destroyed boats. “We have not had meat for months. We used to have fresh food every day but now nothing,” he said.

“The main problem for us is that we cannot go where the fish are. We cannot go beyond six miles and often when we go out the Israeli coast guard vessels fire at us and send us back. Now we can only get the fish that escape from the Israeli nets. The coast guards block the places where I know we will find fish,” he said.

Now Abu Amir is forced to get work on other boats for $2 a day while he tries to gather enough money to pay for a new boat. His wife has taken out a loan and the whole family is on restricted diet to help pay for the boat which will cost around $2500.

Within a month he will get the new boat. “But I need to be able to fish freely if I am to re-pay the loan. I yearn to be to be out on the sea. It’s what I am good at,” he said.

Abu Amir’s family exist on the food aid they receive from UNRWA every two months. Each family receives 50kg of flour, five kg of rice, five kg of sugar, two litres of cooking oil, one kg of powdered milk and five kg of chick peas. Some of the food aid can be sold to provide cash for fresh fruit, meat or whatever the family requires.

Itiedel Hassan Zanati,37, now has to stretch the food aid to provide for all her family’s needs after what little income the family could get was wiped out by the death of her husband.

Mohammed Hassan Zinati,35, was at home on March 8, 2003, when he heard shooting and explosions, he went out to see what was happening and to see if anyone needed help. He was killed by an Israeli tank shell during a raid on Jabalia refugee camp.

His wife and their seven children, who were already struggling, have now fallen into extreme poverty. They rely on the food assistance they get from UNRWA and some money from the social affairs department of the Palestinian Authority.

“Before the Intifada, my husband worked sometimes in Israel but he earned enough money to ensure that we were okay. Once the Intifada began, my husband maybe worked one day a month in Gaza but our income went from 1500 shekels ($350) a month to 400 shekels($93).

“Before we could buy most things the children needed without hesitation. But when the money stopped coming in I had to repair clothes and school bags and things like that because there was no money to buy new ones.

“We used to eat meat two or three times a week now we maybe have it once every three weeks if we are lucky. For holidays like Eid we could buy the children presents. In the last three years they have had nothing. We were already poor but when my husband was killed we became much poorer,” she said.

The family’s staple food is the bread which Itiedel bakes every day. They drink sugared tea throughout the day and breakfast, lunch and dinner consists of bread with foule (beans) or falafael or hummus or potatoes.

“ I make bread from the flour we receive. With the chick peas I make falafael. Sometimes I have extra flour or something and I sell it to buy milk or give some cash to the children.

“When I make falafael, I borrow a mixer from a neighbour and I soak the chickpeas overnight. I mix the chick peas with whatever I can get, pepper, onions, salt and other vegetables. I normally use cooking oil rather than olive oil because it’s all that we can afford,” she explained.

Itiedel is relieved at the moment because three of her children are attending a summer camp which is provided free by international and religious charities. While at camp they get two good meals and it reduces the pressure on the family food stocks.

“In the past we could eat what we wanted. Now I have to wait for the vegetables to get old before they are cheap enough to buy. When we buy meat it’s frozen because it is half the price of fresh meat. Basically I only buy the cheapest things available and I always bargain. We sometimes get food as gifts from friends and relatives but nobody has much to spare around here,” she said.

The family live in Block 5 of Jabalia Refugee Camp, a maze of alleyways which are not broad enough to allow two people to pass at the same time. The children look healthy but their poor diet becomes an issue when they fall ill. Itiedel explained: “The food is not adequate. My son had jaundice and the doctor recommended that he should eat honey but there was no way I could afford it. He got better but it took four weeks when it could have taken two weeks.”

The Hanati family and the Abu Amir family are just two of tens of thousands in Gaza and the West Bank devastated by the current crisis. According to the World Bank: “Sixty percent of the population of the West Bank and Gaza live under a poverty line of $2 per day. The numbers of the poor have tripled from 637,000 in September 2000 to nearly 2 million in mid-2003. Gross national income per capita has fallen to nearly half of what it was two years ago. More than 50 percent of the work force is unemployed. Overall, Palestinian national income losses in just over two years have reached $5.4 billion, the equivalent of one full year of national income prior to the intifada. “

Children are the most keenly affected by this poverty and its effect on their nutrition. A United States Agency for International Development found that four out of five children in Gaza and the West Bank have inadequate iron and zinc intake, deficiencies that cause anaemia and weaken the immune system.

The study also reported that, “ More than half the children in each territory have inadequate caloric and vitamin A intake. Nursing and pregnant mothers too are suffering. On average they consume 15-20% fewer calories per day than they did before the outbreak of strife in 2000. The consequent anaemia, low folic acid intake and lack of proteins, threaten both their health and the normal development of their children. "