Distributing food in Fasayil,  Ras El Ayin, and Ein Hilweh

Before distributing food we went to the agricultural store in the settlement of Tomer to buy fertilizer.  The salesman asked us if I was from the Jordan Valley or from Israel, and when I told him I was from Israel he refused to sell it to me.  I guessed that this was because the fertilizer is subsidized by the government and Israeli farmers will have to pay twice as much as the settlers pay.   This is another way the government supports the criminals who are usurping Palestinian land.

Mekorot, the Israeli water company, has begun to deepen pumping of the water from sources located southeast of the settlement of Roi to a depth of 160 meters.  This has been a dry year and underground water has become less abundant, but instead of attempting to save water by planting crops that require less water, the settlers continue to pump water until everyone will run dry.  The additional pumping will cause the ground water in Area A of the Palestinian Authority where there are no Jewish settlements to become even more scarce.

The well at Ein El Uja is completely dry as well as all the canals that brought water to various areas in the southern Jordan Valley, including the famous “slide” that provided much enjoyment to the residents of Jerusalem.

Fasayil
Distribution of food in Fsayil was a tragedy. We lost contact with Musa, the husband of Maryam whom we had taken for ten years to receive injections in her eyes.  Maryam passed away about four months ago.  We therefore had to impose on another person who is very nice but incapable of organizing the distribution.  Unlike Musa did, he failed to organize a list of people who were in need and was not present at the tim the packages of food arrived.  Women arrived at his house to take food  and attempted to grab food from each other.  There is extreme hardship in the village and people fought over the food.  We were forced to take the food into the house and take out a little at a time.  We rode in the minibus to another distribution point and women forced their way into the bus to take food.  Our driver was firm but tolerand and helped us with translation.   I could not understand the word that everyone was shouting.  An elderly woman received a package and it was forcibly taken from her.  She waited for us to accompany her to her house and bring her another box, but that did not help.  Other women and children were waiting for her there and took that one away as well.   A boy opened the trunk of my car and grabbed another box and I ran after him.  I shouted to the people in my broken Arabic: “Where is your respect?  How dare you take a package from an old woman?”

In the end I took 14 packages to Musa’s house and drove with him to homes of needy families such as families with people who are handicapped, a family with a daughter with severe intellectual disabilities and severe behavioral problems.  By the time we were finished at noon we were physically and mentally exhausted.  The people’s hardships and the effort of attempting to retain order in the chaos, and the attempt to distribute the food in a fair manner, were exhausting and depressing.  There were more optimistic moments such as the joy of the mother of the daughter with the mental disability, the women who brought my a bag of stuffed grape leaves, and another women who gave me dates from her trees.

Uja
We drove to Uja because one of my tires was low on air.  In the bakery we asked where there was a garage and the owner immediately telephoned someone who took us to his garage.  He did not agree to take payment for filling the tire with air, but offered us coffee instead.

Ras El Ein
The shift ended at 2:30 and we met two groups of foreign volunteers and Bentzion who live in the nearby cabin next to the “Madafah” in Ras El Ein.  The Madafah is a tent in which the activists live and who protect the only remaining village in the area 24/7.  One of the volunteers in the morning shift reported that he had found nine poisoned sheep and a bag of poison in the field.  We stayed there for an hour to recuperate from the traumatic morning that we had spent    .