Struggling to Survive

Families like Najwa Abu Eid's are receiving food aid from Mercy Corps in the hopes of averting a humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip. Photos: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

Al Mawassi, Gaza Strip — Palestinian health officials recently visited the two-room home of Najwa Abu Eid and requested she destroy her 15 chickens because of a nearby outbreak of Avian flu. The 37-year-old woman didn't comply, not only because she has faith in God to protect her poultry, but also because she'd then have no source of protein for her eight kids — and the ninth still in her belly.

Life has never been easy for the 8,000 people of Al Mawassi, an isolated strip of small farms, shanty houses and modest compounds near the Mediterranean Sea. It is an island of extreme poverty in a sea of desperation: eight out of ten Gaza residents now live below the poverty line of $2.70 in earnings per day, according to the UN.

The current crisis is staggering, but its roots go back nearly thirty years. Beginning in the late 1970s, according to the United Nations, Israeli settlements and military checkpoints restricted residents' access to the sea (and its fish stocks) to the west, and to schools and jobs in 200,000-person Khan Younis to the east.

Today, despite the withdrawal of Israeli forces last summer, residents say things aren't any better. With more than 73,000 Palestinian Authority workers in Gaza unpaid since February, and Israeli border closures blocking exports from Gaza's most fertile agricultural region, the economy here is spiraling rapidly downward.

"Life is so difficult now," says Najwa, whose husband can only find sporadic part-time work picking potatoes in nearby fields for about $1.40 an hour. "There are no jobs. There is nothing for us." One of her daughters, she adds, needs treatment for asthma.

UN expects situation to worsen

Seven of Najwa Abu Eid's eight children.

On Wednesday, the United Nations humanitarian agency issued an emergency appeal, calling on donors to provide $385 billion to help Gazans in this time of "desperate need." Emergency employment programs, food aid and medical supplies are all needed to cope with a humanitarian crisis that the UN expects to "worsen dramatically in the coming months."

Over the past week, Mercy Corps provided staple food supplies - including sacks of flour and sugar and large bottles of vegetable oil - to 300 families in Al Mawassi. These families also received household supplies such as detergent, water barrels, pots, pans and dishware. Mercy Corps' local partner, Ard El Insan, a Palestinian health agency, selected the beneficiaries from among its most dire cases. Najwa's family was one of them.

Another food distribution for 150 families is scheduled for Friday, June 2. Mercy Corps also is exploring a jobs program that would provide short-term employment to members of the most vulnerable families, helping them alleviate a crushing financial burden and injecting some much-needed cash into the local economy.