March 4, 2003
A seemingly barren coastal corridor bordering the Mediterranean, the Gaza Strip has for centuries hosted considerable citrus, date and olive production yet suffered frequent political unrest.
Difficult times
Since the end of the British Mandate in 1948 the Palestinians have worked hard to try and regain the right to govern the Gaza Strip, leading to partial self-rule in 1994. Since then Israeli soldiers have backed away but never quite withdrawn and in September 2000 peace talks finally broke down altogether. Following the Gulf War in 1991, the region has also seen a considerable migration of Palestinians back to their families here, swelling the local population to around 1.2 million.
The situation was already difficult for Palestinian farmers here, but with Israeli soldiers now bulldozing farmland, destroying water sources and cutting off roads, it is becoming far worse. Ahmed Sourani, Director of foreign affairs at PARC, the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee, explains that recent developments in the Gaza Strip have hit the Palestinian farmers hard.
Land destruction
"We are living in very unacceptable conditions. More than 52,000 dunams, (5000 hectares) were demolished totally by the Israeli bulldozers, by the Israeli tanks and these lands were forming a very important resource for the survival of hundreds, thousands of Palestinian farmers."
Land clearance is not the only problem for local farmers. "Sometimes it is very difficult to market production from the south of Gaza", explains Sourani, who tries to co-ordinate the movement of Palestinian produce to marketplaces in urban centres, "Most of the main roads are cut by Israeli checkpoints."
Food programme
Unable to make a living some farmers give up, but PARC, with the assistance of the World Food Programme (WFP), is trying to help. Farmers are entitled to free food if they stay on their lands, maintain them and continue to grow produce for sale, even at a loss. Rafeek Al Madoum from the World Food Programme describes the positive effects of the programme on one family.
"This guy is 38 years old. He has nine children and lives with his four brothers in the same house. All 37 people receive food from the WFP, that has a positive impact on their life as they could survive and keep going under this hard socio-economic situation."
Since Old Testament times, water supplies have proved a source of conflict. With most fresh water resources falling within Israeli farmland, the Palestinians are left with a small number of simple wells, many of which have already been destroyed by Israeli soldiers. The Palestinian Water Authority, with the help of the French government, was in the process of rescuing a water desalination plant, but since recent conflict escalated progress has been stopped.
Vital for life
"This first phase was scheduled to cover the needs of 120,000 people in this area. The project was a good example to have limited quantities for drinking purposes only, and to use the brackish water, which is distributed by the municipal wells, for other domestic purposes."
Farming without water provides little future for the Palestinians, therefore PARC has funded the building of 18 reservoirs that can each sustain around 10 farms in the Gaza Strip area. The Palestinian Water Authority is also receiving help from Bethlehem University away on the neighbouring West Bank. Brother David Scarpa - teaching a course in ground water flow - says the long-distance learning facility for local staff is vital.
"It's important that we have people aware of water management in all its facets, as engineers, technicians, scientists and in the social sciences too. It is essential we get it right."
Future peace
Palestinians and those organisations lending support are working hard to preserve what little they have, but as PARC's Ahmed Sourani explains, there can be no future without real peace. "You cannot talk about development, real development, without having real peace in this area, neither in Palestine nor in Israel."
Both the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the PLO leader Yasser Arafat own extensive coastal farmlands and have long expressed their wish to return peacefully to work on these lands. However, it may well be that the local Palestinian farmer's endurance, rather than political negotiation, prove the most critical factor in the survival of the Gaza Strip farmlands.
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