THREE WEEKS TRAPPED IN
A WAREHOUSE
Toufic Zaarour, Nablus Area Dispatcher

Toufic Zaarour, also called Abu Zyad, has been an UNRWA staff member for 25 years. He started as a truck driver, and in 1990 became the Nablus Area Dispatcher. Zaarour, a middle-aged grey-haired man, is married and father of five. He spends most of his time at the Balata Warehouse organizing the daily movement of UNRWA vehicles in the Nablus area. Despite his dedication and the importance of his task, he is a modest and shy person and is reluctant to talk about himself or see anything “special” about what he does.

As the Nablus area dispatcher, Toufic Zaarour is responsible for all UNRWA vehicle movements in the Nablus area, which stretches from south of Nablus to north of Jenin. He allocates cars to UNRWA staff members, organises distribution convoys, makes sure vehicles are properly maintained, and works with the Operations Office in Jerusalem when UNRWA vehicles have problems at Israeli security forces’ checkpoints in the Nablus area. The dispatcher is responsible for more than 40 cars; two trucks and two pick-ups, in addition to the UNRWA rented trucks.

Zaarour says he receives an average of 80 professional calls a day. “I don’t know how I can keep my concentration. I rely on my memory and on habit. But in a few years I myself will need some maintenance, like the cars,” he says with his shy smile.

Trapped for three weeks

Zaarour and four other UNRWA staff members were trapped in the warehouse for 21 days during the Israeli Defence Forces’ incursion in Nablus in March and April 2002. When asked about it, Zaarour almost indifferently says “we knew it was going to happen, and it never occurred to me that I should not stay at the warehouse”.

When IDF tanks and infantry entered Nablus on 30 March 2002, Zaarour was working in the warehouse with the UNRWA Area Officer, two guards and a driver. The five UNRWA staff members stayed in the warehouse for the next three weeks without electricity or running water, but managed to produce enough electrical power from car batteries to recharge their telephones and make the TV work. They also improvised an oven with pieces of scrap iron and baked their own bread using broken shipping pallets for fuel.

On 12 April, the IDF curfew eased during the day and Zaarour was able to leave the warehouse. However, he did not return to his home in Balata Camp because he did not want to leave the warehouse unsupervised. He began organising food and medicines distributions with the two trucks he had available. He used the commodities stored in the warehouse – flour, rice and lentils – and others goods that were escorted from the Field Office in Jerusalem by Operations Support Programme officers. He led several food distributions in the three Nablus camps – Askar, Balata and Camp Number One – whose residents had not been able to leave their homes for two weeks. The first distribution took place in Askar; the truck in which Zaarour was riding came under fire. The truck was hit six times, with one round shattering the windscreen and passing just over Zaarour’s head. Zaarour and the driver spent that night in Askar camp but next day made it back to Balata warehouse to organise more emergency distributions.

After a long pause, Zaarour says this was the most frightening experience of the long incursion. “I thought I would die. But God did not want to take me away.” Asked what he was thinking during the incident, Zaarour says simply: “I was thinking about all the people I still wanted to help.”

Zaarour did not get back to his own home until 21 April because “Even when I was close to home during food distributions in Balata Camp, I did not leave the truck to go and see my family. There were more important things to do. I called them in the evening to tell them I was alright”.

New responsibilities

After the incursions of last spring, the daily work routine became somewhat easier. However Zaarour says that “The intifada has created many new problems, and I have more responsibilities as a result,” referring to the access problems at checkpoints and the longer trips to the various UNRWA distribution centres.

When UNRWA drivers and other staff members are delayed at an IDF checkpoint, many of them contact Zaarour and inform him of the situation. He then refers them to the Operations Office in Jerusalem, and stays in touch with them and the radio room until the problem is resolved.

Some UNRWA staff members, especially social workers and medics, often come back late in the day and find Zaarour waiting for them. He says he always waits for the last car to arrive and will not go home if a car is still out or unaccounted for; he also feels responsible for the staff members, and sometimes drives them to the nearest checkpoint, particularly if there is a curfew.

Trips from one city to the other have also become longer and more problematic: “A trip from Nablus to Fara’a used to be 17 kilometres. Now it is 50 kilometres because of checkpoints and closures,” he says. Longer journeys mean more planning, more mechanical problems, and sometimes greater risk of danger for the food-distribution teams.

Vulnerable refugees

The Nablus area is the biggest of the three West Bank areas. It comprises four major cities (Jenin, Tulkarm, Nablus and Qalqilya), their respective camps, Fara’a Camp and several villages where the Agency provides Education, Health and Social and Relief Services to the refugee population.

UNRWA distributions in the Nablus area benefit nearly 45,000 families (40,000 under the Emergency Programme and 4,500 who are deemed the special hardship cases, that is, the most economically vulnerable of the refugees.)

A food distribution usually involves cargo trucks, pick-ups and one mini-bus. Convoys are sent over a two or three-day period to the same camp or village until all parcels are distributed to eligible families. From Balata warehouse, Zaarour coordinates up to three distributions a day in various regions of the Nablus area and supervises all logistics, from the moment the trucks leave the warehouse until they come back.

Zaarour describes distributions today as “longer and more trips, more and tougher checkpoints”. He says: “Before the intifada, we sent the same truck twice to Jenin on the same day, and could carry out a complete food distribution for special hardship cases in two days. Now we can only send one truck a day, and have to resend it several times in the same week until the distribution is complete.” After a few seconds of silence, he adds: “when the trucks make it to their destination,” and that is because sometimes the trucks are unable to make it through the checkpoints and have to return to the warehouse with their cargo.

An UNRWA mechanic refers to Zaarour as “the engine that moves the Nablus area.” Seeing Zaarour at work with his radios, phones and innumerable vehicle requisition petitions supports this description. Zaarour works closely with drivers and mechanics, teachers, medics and social workers, who travel to work in UN cars. He has an excellent working relationship with all. “I am not saying we have not had problems. But we have always solved them on the spot. What is important is not having hard feelings. These are tough times, we all work for the same objective and we should not forget that,” he says.

Zaarour says he does not get bored because he likes his job and believes it is useful. What he enjoys most is providing assistance to the ill, such as organising for ambulances to pick up patients because “a sick person is to be helped no matter what… Unfortunately I am not a doctor, so I cannot treat the patients. But at least I can organise and coordinate their transfer to the hospitals, and this is a big personal satisfaction”.

After his time is up as a dispatcher Zaarour would still like to use his energy and experience to work in some capacity for Palestine refugees “because this is our mission and this is what I have done for the past 25 years of my life.”