Palestinians suffer extreme poverty

GAZA – Jihan Al-Adgham, a Palestinian woman from the besieged coastal enclave, spends most of her time placing pots under the holes in the roof of her house to protect her children from getting wet from rainwater in the cold winter nights.

The 46-year-old mother of seven lives in a 60-square-meter dilapidated house with cracked walls in Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, where the houses are close to each other and the streets are narrow.

Al-Adgham and her family have been suffering from extreme poverty for many years.

“In such weather, because of the extreme poverty imposed on us, I can barely feed my children once a day,” the mother said while crying.

Their family was not such tragic when her husband worked years ago as a fisherman in the sea, as he earned about $70 a day, she recalled.

Ayman Al-Adgham, Jihan’s husband, told Xinhua that his situation was turned upside down due to the deteriorating economic conditions in the strip, as he now earns about $70 per month, which is not enough to keep his family afloat.

Al-Adgham family relies on food aid provided by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees (UNRWA). Also, the father resorts to buying leftover vegetables sold in local markets.

“The hardest feeling I face daily is when my children demand their daily allowance from me, and I cannot provide it for them,” the 48-year-old man said.

The situation is not much different for the family of Hamad Al-Swirki, who lives in the village of Al-Nasr in the northern Gaza Strip, in a Zingo house established on government land amid a constant threat of eviction.

The 46-year-old amputee man told Xinhua that the suffering of his 10-member family began after he was exposed to an Israeli bombardment, which made him lose his feet and could not work anymore.

“In the past, I worked as a farmer in Israeli cities, and I used to make a lot of money, but because of the conflict between the Israeli army and the Palestinian factions, I turned to be destitute,” the father of nine said.

“We don’t have a home that protects us from climate changes, and we don’t have money to provide food for my family,” the man complained.

Zuhour Al-Swirki, Hamad’s daughter, told Xinhua that she wishes to live like her schoolmates in better conditions.

Both Al-Adgham and Al-Swirki are among 1,500,000 low-income families living in the Strip, according to a report issued by Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights recently, as a result of the Israeli blockade imposed on the territory.

Titled by “Bitter 16: A Generation Bred in Captivity,” the report said that the humanitarian crises in Gaza have doubled amid the blockade. In 2005, before the Israeli siege, the unemployment rate was about 23.6 per cent, while at the end of 2021, it reached 50.2 per cent to be among the highest unemployment rates in the world.

As a result, the report indicated that poverty rates had witnessed a sharp rise due to Israeli restrictions, jumping from 40 per cent in 2005 to 69 per cent in 2021.

Despite the humanitarian situation in the Strip reaching unprecedented levels of deterioration and the succession of seven Israeli governments since the beginning of the blockade, the Israeli policy of “collective punishment” against the population in Gaza remains constant, the report noted.

Since 2007, the Strip has been put under a tight Israeli blockade after the Hamas movement forcibly seized the area.

Courtesy: Sanaa Kamal