For twenty years Abu Otaiwi family used to cultivate their land adjacent to “Wadi Gaza” and the separation wire on the eastern border of the Gaza Strip with parsley.
Every day in the morning the brothers “Hossam Hazem and Bassim” encounter a real test; going to their land which is only 200 meters away from the borders and is the closest one to the Israeli occupation military sites which puts them in the mortal danger of occupation fire.
The Parsley Field
Bassim Abu Otaiwi 25 bends over a 30-dunum green carpet of parsley holding his sickle which he uses to cut the green parsley plants.
He told the Palestinian Information Center that “Parsley is a very delicate plant and it needs to be sprayed with pesticides constantly and we are working here from 9:00am until the sun goes down because 15 people are living from the product of this land.”
Bassim’s feet and his brother’s sink while they move between lines of parsley that vary in growth while they gather the harvest in bundles and collect them at the end of the field before taking them to the tractor.
He continues: “Despite the quietness on the border it could change suddenly and shootings and artillery shells could be suddenly fired if the occupation forces doubt anything and there has been a bombing few days ago very close to us and we ran away.”
Abu Otaiwi family has suffered a great loss during the war of 2014 on the Gaza Strip when the parsley field was left for 50 days; the crops were ready to be harvested but the family couldn’t harvest a single bundle.
Fire and frost
Hazem Abu Otaiwi 23 shakes the mud off his hands jumps behind the wheel and drives for tens of meters before his brother Bassim continues cutting more parsley.
He told the PIC that “this plant is very sensitive to the weather and from now until February it would grow very slowly in the cold and its prices would be volatile… Today we have cut a large amount of parsley to sell out to butcheries and falafel shops.”
Nothing worries Hazem except the borders disorder that may develop at any moment to shooting and random shelling which would deprive them of continuing to take care of the most sensitive plants.
He continues: “We are now worried about the fall of frost that occurred few days ago; it kills parsley but we’re also worried of the gunfire shooting close by as you can see we’re only few tens of meters away from the border fence.”
Hazem and his siblings spend long hours in the parsley field which has made his family the most famous farmers of this plant in the borders area adjacent to the border wire and which earned their father the name of “The King of Parsley” although now it appears that the King has taken off his crown.
