Because they are hungry....

I wrote this piece during Ramadan a few weeks ago. I finally posted it.

Omar Ibn Abu El Khatab, the prophet's uncle was taking a walk one night when he heard children crying. He followed the cries, leading him into a house where he found a woman with her children. "Why are your children crying," he asked. "Because they are hungry," the woman replied. He saw a pot on fire with the top closed, and suddenly got confused. "And what are you cooking," he inquired. She looked up at him and said, "I added rocks and water and cooking them in the pot so that they think I am cooking food, and they’ll stop crying. They'll fall asleep thinking the food is not yet ready."

There are always scraps of vegetables left over after Rafah’s daily market. Scraps of rotten tomatoes, cucumbers or just leaves and strings from onions and radishes, mixed with garbage, all in the street where the carts used to be earlier that day. By the end of the day, they’ve gotten mixed with sewage water and stepped on by over a hundred footsteps.

Today, I met a woman who has relied on those scraps to feed herself and her children. While I was sitting with her, she was making soup out of those very leaves of radishes that I have on so many occasions walked on or tiptoed around after I had purchased my vegetables from the market.

Desperate to feed her six children and break her own fast, she fries the rotten tomatoes and makes a salad out of the eggplant and cucumbers. This would be their first and only meal for the day. For her three younger children, all who want something sweet to drink, she adds sugar to water and tells them it’s colorless juice.

What drives a woman to wait until after people have left the market to walk around with a plastic bag picking up left over vegetables from the ground with puddles of sewage water and take it home to cook it for her children? Desperation. She wouldn't do it if she didn't have to, nobody would. But she doesn't have any money to buy what she needs. And to make matters worst, she ran out of the food aid she received from UNRWA in July, such as flour, oil, sugar and lentils. And she has to feed herself and her children.

UN registered refugees are eligible to receive aid every three months. They are due to receive food packages this month, in October but with the border closures, aid is slow to come in, if it does come in at all. With over 80% of the population depending on that food aid, there is simply not enough coming into Gaza to feed everyone.

The Karni and Rafah Crossings have been closed for almost five months now, so even when countries send us millions of dollars worth of food aid, its sits at the border until Israel decides to let it in. Likewise, if the outside world is to send financial assistance, Israel withholds it. As I am writing this, Gaza's banks have run out of cash. Even someone like myself, who has funds in a local bank account, am unable to withdraw cash because the banks simply run out due to Israeli banks cutting off ties with Gaza.

Dov Weisglass was certainly not joking when he said earlier this year, that "the idea is not to put Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger." For the fourth day this week we have been breaking our fast with fried eggplant and tomatoes, lentil soup and a salad washed down with some tea. Vegetables are hardly getting into Gaza because of the border closures. Kerem Shalom only lets in some food, but its mostly aid packages and not fresh vegetables or fruits. Like a prison, we are fed in small portions and our guards decide when and if to allow us some food.

Even Israeli products that used to arrive into Gaza have become scarce. Also, food prices are sky-rocketing and people cannot afford basics such as flour or sugar. At least last year during this time, Gazans were able to live on bread, but now they cannot even afford the flour that does become available.

We are being confined to this space, silently imprisoned, sanctioned, completely isolated, abandoned and denied every opportunity to provide for themselves and our families. This is man-made crisis, where everything has become desperate, to an already impoverished territory. We are not starving yet, but Gaza is dying a slow death, and Israel has been brought to our knees in desperation. People's lives have been reduced to chasing after food packages, hustling in order to survive.

Our hopes lie with the conference of November to which Gaza is not even represented because Hamas is not invited.

When Omar Ibn Abu Khatab saw the desperation in the woman’s eyes, and heard her children’s cries, he went out and brought back foods of all sorts and offered it to her. “Now you’re children don’t have to cry,” he uttered.

What has to happen for Gaza’s borders to open so that a woman who wouldn’t otherwise eat scraps from the ground could provide for herself and her children? What has to happen for the world to hear Gaza’s cries?

Jamalat with her children, Malak, Mohammed, Atwa and Eyad

Five-month’s old Eyad is one of the happiest babies I’ve ever met. Barley touch his cheeks and he smiles, tickle his little belly and he bursts out in laughter, kicking his feet in the air. He’s also really quiet when he’s alone. He just lies there, and quiets plays with his hands and feet. He doesn’t cry like other babies. But get anywhere near him, and he sees you, he starts to laugh and kick his feet up in the air with excitement so you can play with him. His mother, Jamalat, says his laughter is a blessing from God as it takes away some of her sorrow and fills her heart instead with joy.

Eyad has never met his father, and his father has never seen him. Jamalat was 5-weeks pregnant with Eyad when his father, my cousin, was killed by an Israeli sniper during an incursion in Sufa. He had just told Jamalat to prepare some tea and took his then two-year old daughter, Malak and sat in front of his house. The sniper had every intention of killing him, not injure or disable him, for he didn’t shot him once or twice or in the leg or arm but he shot him three times; in his stomach, his chest and his neck. He would have died from his stomach wound, but was shot again in his chest. He fell to the ground and laid there, half alive, but mostly dead, hanging between life and death as he looked at his daughter. And then came the final shot to his neck, which eliminated any ounce of life left in him. Jamlat was used to the sound of gunshots, so she didn’t think to check on where or whom had been shot, until Malak ran over to her crying with her father’s blood all over her face and clothes.

Ironically, he was shot from his uncle’s house, just 50 meters away. The house was raided the night before, and transformed into a military site. The sniper was on the roof when he shot my cousin. This is how Israel legally and quietly harasses Gazans. They come in quietly from the border, whether its Sufa or Biet Hanoun or Khan Younis, and raid a house. They cut off all the phone lines and the electricity and lock the house residents into a room, declaring the house a military site. For the next day or so, they assess the area, and quietly plan. No one else in the neighborhood knows that the IDF has taken over that house, and it could be days before they leave. They come to arrest or kill so called militants, and raze trees and demolish homes of so called militant supporters. They then leave quietly, pulling back their tanks and bulldozers from Gaza, and sit at the Israeli-Gaza border until they decide on the next incursion.

Jamalat says God has taken away her husband away from her, only to give Eyad the same face. Eyad is an exact image of his father. He was also given his name.


Me with Eyad

It’s hard to laugh with Eyad laugh without having your heart-broken. He has no idea the world he will grow up in. He’ll grow up with only stories and pictures of his father. He’ll see his mother struggle to feed him and siblings. He’ll be told he’s refugee, and get used to waiting in line with his mom for their food packages. He’ll learn to sleep with the sounds of Israeli planes over his head. He’ll recognize the sounds of tanks coming into his neighborhood and that’ll be his que to run home. Anger will fill his heart when he sees Israeli’ bulldozers raze and break his father’s olive trees. And he’ll live under Israeli occupation, in an unjust world, where he will think its normal to live in such conditions, and there is no other alternative.

He’ll never know or see the face of the Israeli solider that killed his father, or receive reparations for the life he will live. And the Israeli solider will never realize what he has done or who he has hurt. He never thought for a second before he shot those three shots that the man he was shooting was someone’s father, and was loved by his wife and had just invited his neighbors for tea to celebrate Jamalat’s pregnancy before sitting in front of his door to greet them.

The Revolution Begins

Phase one of the home gardening project has come to an end. An end to the preparations, trainings, discussions, and handouts. In a matter of months, Save Gaza has accomplished what it set out to accomplish.

Now, Palestinians are being tested. The difference this time is that the end result will be empowering and liberating. A small community of women have been given an opportunity to challenge their environment. With just a few seeds and chickens, we will watch the home gardens flourish into something beyond the Israeli occupation. No amount of bullets, rockets, F-16s, sonic booms, can take away from these women the strength they find in their gardens.

Never will we see or read in the news, this strength. Instead we will be masked with the images of violence and terror, but that's ok. The less publicity they get the better. The easier it will be then to divest and silently break the cycle of dependency.

It doesnt end here...

I had not realized that a small, grassroots project could be so needed and helpful. In the midst of preparing to implement this project, with running errands, filling out mundane paperwork and beating the political bureaucracy of transferring money to Gaza, I lost sight of who it was really for. But in the last couple of days I saw the faces of the women who had made it all worthwhile and I was reminded of how important this project was. Save Gaza was not here to "save gaza". We were simply providing the means and tools by which to empower these women. We are not yet another organization operating in Gaza and giving handouts which last a few months, and even now, those have become limited. I realized this as I sat through the training. It dawned on me how important it was for us as a people, as Palestinians, to become self-reliant and how important that was for our sovereignty and independence.

During the training we discussed the importance of being able to provide for ourselves, especially with Gaza's economic decline. We were now doing just that by growing our own food. The markets are getting emptier, and even for what's available, most people cannot afford the high prices of flour, oil and vegetables. The women of Kherbit Al Addas knew this, as most of them break their fast with some fried eggplant, some hummas (chickpeas) with bread and onions. They were well aware they cannot afford to buy the vegetables from the market, so they saw the importance and necessity in growing their own gardens. We discussed health, nutrition, children's mal-nutrition, and preventable health problems. The training had turned into a larger discussion. The women were very engaging and wanted to share their experiences with gardening and farming. I also felt it was important for them to speak because I wanted them to feel safe and comfortable in the space we were in.

Everything we bought, including the plants, seedlings and the chickens for the project were local. It was important for the project to empower everyone involved, including the farmer who sold us the chickens. It was also important for us not to purchase any Israeli made products introducing the concept of divestment which was also discussed with the women. The point being made showed how buying local products will allow Gaza's economy to flourish, even on a small scale. The women already knew this, and knew that these gardens meant more than just health, and nutrition, but were also part of the resistance movement. Divesting from your occupier is a form of resistance, and therefore growing their own food and mobilizing their communities towards this is resisting the Israeli occupation.

I had to come to Gaza and see these women to realize how much a small project, with such a small budget could mean so much more, and could carry all this meaning. We had provided 20 families with vegetable plants and chickens and a three day training on how to care for them......But what really left me in awe, was the power of these women to take these tools, and their willingness to provide for themselves and their families, and not rely on foreign aid or Israeli products. It was their poor conditions, but hope for something better, no matter what obstacles stood in their way. It was their resistance to allowing Israel or the Israeli occupation to break them and their communities. The very people I hoped to empower had inspired me. It wasn't just about the gardens; it was about a community, about Gaza, about Palestine, and about our independence.

The project does not end here.....there is no end to sustainability.

More pictures...of chickens this time

Distributing Plants and Chickens-Day 3

More photos to come....including the chickens :)


Hanan bagging some plants, there were three kinds of plants
and the rest were seedlings.

Training Day 2

Second trainer Jamal, also agricultural engineer.


Ahlam, Director of the Women's Rural Organization whose
space was used for the training.


Sara, Amani, Hanna & Fatima

Training Day 1

Basil, one of the trainers. He's an Agricultural Engineer


Hanan, one of the 20 women, sharing with the group old
methods of composting passed down from her father.


The entire group

Home Gardens Update

On Oct. 1, we began training 20 women from Khirbet Al Adas, a small village in northeast Rafah, the start of our long awaited Home Gardening Project. Its a small community of Bedioun refugees who were exiled from mostly Beir Sheba in 1948. Most of the men in the village worked in Israel as construction workers, but in 2000 they lost their jobs with the beginning of the Intifada. Most are unemployed, adding to Gaza's growing 60% unemployment rate, and like everyone else do little jobs here and there, but mostly rely on UNRWA's food hand outs which come out every 3 months. Handouts mostly consist of dry milk, flour, sugar and dried lentils, but are never enough to feed the family especially when most of Gaza's families average 8-10 children.

This particular community was chosen for several reasons. The main one being that the area is somewhat isolated and therefore neglected. Located on the Gaza's easter border with Israel they do not have access to the rest of Rafah and therefore are indirectly neglected by UNWRA and other international organizations. These agencies shy away from such communities because of the risk involved in getting so close to the border. A border that belongs to one people, but controlled by another. Additionally, the Bedouin communities tend to be forgotten about or ostracized by most.

The second reason as to why the community of Khirbet Al Adas was chosen is because there is no infrustructure as compared to the rest of Rafah. Most of the houses are two bedroom asbestos infested homes, with more than ten people living in them, between dirt roads and cactus trees with very little space to spare.

And the final reason, and probably the most important we chose this community is because they have a space for, but cannot afford to invest in a garden. In the past, most of these families have been denied help from agricultural organizations because their gardening space was too small for farming, so they would not qualify to receive any sort of help in starting these gardens. There are two farming/agriculture categories in Gaza, two extremes, urban agriculture and large scale farming. Urban agriculture refers to roof top gardening which is what most of Gazans do because of limited space in and around their homes. And then there is large scale farming, which is mostly done with large pieces of land, mostly in norther Gaza such as Biet Hanoun and Biet Lahiya. The community of Kherbit Al Addas falls in between these categories. Most of the families there do not have large pieces of land for large scale farming, but also don't have the roves for urban-roof top gardening, but do have a small space of 100 metes or less in or around their homes.

This is why this project is unique, while simple and small scale, it serves those families who have the space for a garden, but not the means to start growing it. We are merely planting a seed for sustainable development, but also self sufficiency so that these families can benefit from these gardens in providing for themselves and their families.

And with this we began on Oct. 1 our training and on Oct. 3 the 20 women will begin gardening. We will continue to update you with pictures and thank you for your support. We have come a long way, despite the many challenges of working in Gaza, especially in the recent months, and would not have done it without your support and help.