In a broken tone Palestinian citizen Nadia communicates with the broker who she communicates with every year during the month of Ramadan asking him about the annual amount of money he receives as a donation for her from one of the Arab donors.
Nadia a mother of five children and an unemployed sick husband has been waiting for the month of Ramadan every year to receive this amount of money from Arab donors for more than 10 years but the mediator apologized to Nadia telling her it is no longer allowed to send money to Gaza.
Nadia is shocked and does not know what to say or where to go. She burst into tears asking donors to consider her situation.
The situation of Nadia is the case for more than 50% of the people of the Gaza Strip and the number is increasing steadily with campaigns targeting the besieged coastal strip in general and charities in particular.
Another citizen who refused to disclose her identity told the PIC reporter that she was receiving an annual sponsorship from a charity but the politically motivated closure of this charity has stopped it.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has recently announced the closure of its office in Gaza which used to serve thousands of poor families and transferred its Gaza office to the West Bank under pressure from the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah according to its Executive Director Mohammed Abu Hasna who was sacked after closure of the office.
Where is the Muslim nation?
Amjad Rabee 35 a father of five was leading a good life until he stopped working as a merchant because of suffering from diabetes and cartilage and became unable to provide a living for his children.
Rabee swore to the PIC reporter that he could not provide the break fasting meal to his children in Ramadan of whom two fast thus they could not feel the joy of Ramadan.
As the situation is every year Palestinian citizen Rabee is waiting for the charitable people to help him bring relief to his family by buying the food they “long to have throughout the year.”
“This is the first time since I was suspended from work in which I have not received anything as the month of Ramadan is approaching its end” he says in sorrow.
According to economic expert Maher Tabba unemployment rates had hit 41% while the number of unemployed people reached more than 200000 people in Gaza.
Tabba explains to the PIC reporter that more than one million people in the Gaza Strip have no daily income who make 60% of the total population while poverty rates have increased to over 65% accompanied by an unprecedented rise in food insecurity in the Gaza Strip.
Toughest Ramadan ever
Ahmed Al-Kurd the coordinator of charitable organizations in Gaza stressed that the current month of Ramadan is the toughest for the poor and the needy people in Gaza compared with forty years he spent in charitable sector.
In a previous interview with the Palestinian Information Center Al-Kurd said that the plan of action for this year fell from targeting 200000 families to 100000. He pointed out that the decline in the funding of charitable organizations and the ongoing siege only allowed them to meet the need of 40000 poor families in the first ten days of the holy month.
He pointed out that charity work has not seen such a situation for the last forty years. This year Ramadan has seen a high rate of poverty tightening of the siege and an intensified campaign against humanitarian institutions to dry their sources of funding.
He explained that charitable institutions used to help 50000 poor and orphaned families every Ramadan which declined by 40% (20000) this Ramadan.
Charity and humanitarian organizations used to provide aid during Ramadan such as food parcels purchase vouchers Sahour basket breakfast meals and meat which dropped from $40 to $20 in value this year.
