2010-10-20
Ahmed Aldabba
At the beginning of every month, Sobheya Bakroun, a tall, brown-skinned woman goes to an aid distribution center in Gaza run by the World Food Program (WFP) to get food for her 15-member family to survive.
Sobheya has become a breadwinner since she got divorced. Her brother, the only man in her family, lost his job six years ago and has been suffering from diabetes for two years.
"I do a man's job," Sobheya said as she struggled among tens of men to reach a blue window, where she would hand over a green card proving her eligibility and get her supply of food - three bags of flour, some powdered milk, sugar, tea and several bottles of cooking oil.
Back at home, Sobheya's family celebrated the arrival of food like it was a festival. Their house, situated in a neighborhood east of Gaza City where Israeli tanks and armored vehicles can be seen now and then, looks bare and empty with a number of broken plastic chairs being its only furniture.
The woman, standing in her kitchen which only has an old cooker and a used Israeli-made fridge, sighed and said "sometimes we don' t have bread or flour to make bread."
"Of course it's not enough (referring to the WFP supplies), but it's better than nothing," Sobheya said. Food scarcity, a huge problem of her family has now been removed, but what remains is the fear that they may not get any food because of the unstable political conditions in the Gaza Strip.
Over the past four years, the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip experienced dire financial situation as a result of the economic sanctions imposed by Israel, leaving tens of thousands of Gazans living in destitution and among food insecurity.
According to WFP, around 61 percent of the Gaza Strip population are food insecure and are in need of assistance, however, Israel's blockade limited the fight against food scarcity and malnutrition.
Meanwhile, head of WFP's Gaza office Jean-Noel Gentile said that under the Israeli blockade, the purchasing power lowered and jobless rate hit 40 percent, which lead to the dire situation in the enclave.
Gentile said WFP currently provides 240,000 non-refugees in the Gaza Strip with stable food assistance, while the UN Relief and Works Agency takes care of the strip's 750,000 refugees.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-10/20/c_13565486.htm
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