AS RESOURCES DWINDLE, GAZAN CONTACTS SHARE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 JERUSALEM 000078 SIPDIS NEA FOR FRONT OFFICE AND IPA, NSC FOR ABRAMS/PASCUAL/RAMCHAND E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/09/2019 TAGS: EAID ECON IS KWBG MOPS PHUM PREF SUBJECT: AS RESOURCES DWINDLE, GAZAN CONTACTS SHARE SURVIVAL STRATEGIES Classified By: Consul General Jake Walles for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (C) Summary. Gaza contacts reported a growing scarcity of vital resources and described to ConGenoffs the strategies they employ to survive. The internally displaced, who have moved in with family or to UNRWA shelters, face an especially dire situation, according to contacts. Even in their own hour of need, more fortunate Gazans are banding together to provide charity to these displaced. End Summary. FOOD SCARCER AND COSTLIER ========================= ¶2. (C) Gaza contacts told ConGenoffs that they took advantage of the IDF's January 7 "humanitarian pause" to visit loved ones and stock up on food and other essentials. Many goods were either unavailable or prohibitively expensive, they said. Gaza American Corner Director Awni al-Karzon said that many Gazans still have not received their December salaries, and so cannot buy food. He said that food prices in general are two to three times higher than before IDF operations began, mostly due to price gouging. Karzon added that the per-loaf cost of bread is still the same, but for a much smaller loaf than usual, and that fresh vegetables are hard to find in Gaza City since most of the produce comes from the south, which has been cut off by the IDF. "I haven't seen an apple in days," Karzon said. ¶3. (C) USAID subcontractor Basam Naser told USAID FSN that many items are missing from store shelves, including canned vegetables, diapers, and toilet paper. Mohammed al-Natour, a member of the Fatah regional council in Gaza City, told PDOff that he has not been able to find any vegetables except onions and carrots, and noted that the price of eggs has doubled and the cost of a liter of gas has increased five-fold. UNDER HARSH CONDITIONS, FINDING WAYS TO SURVIVE ======================= ¶4. (C) Natour said that his ailing parents are suffering considerably due to the ongoing conflict. Natour's father suffers from a failing kidney and is down to his last ten days of essential medicine. Natour's mother has a lung ailment. Since there is no electricity, her oxygen machine no longer works, and Natour is forced to make a daily trip to a dispensary to fill up a large oxygen tank. Natour fears for his life each time he goes out, since the oxygen tank has dimensions approximating those of the rockets being fired at Israel by militants. He says he makes sure to keep the tank well covered whenever he goes to fill it up. He also strategically avoids driving through known Hamas neighborhoods. ¶5. (C) Karzon said the apartment where he is staying with 22 other people has not had running water for days and has only one toilet. A friend brings them two gallons of fresh water per day, but this is strictly for drinking and cannot be used for other purposes. Therefore, there is no water to flush the toilet, nor for people to wash their hands, clothes, or the towels they are using as baby diapers. People are becoming ill from the lack of hygiene, but have no recourse to medical care, as the hospitals are only treating major traumas. "Basically, unless your stomach is cut open, they laugh at you," Karzon said. ¶6. (C) Natour said that his Gaza City neighborhood of Al-Nasser has not received electricity since the beginning of hostilities. Everyone on his block shares one generator, from which each building receives about an hour of electricity per day. There is still not enough power to pipe tap water to the higher floors of apartment blocks, so families have been lowering buckets from their windows, filling them with water from the bottom floor tap, and then slowly winching the full buckets up to their apartments. ¶7. (C) Al-Azhar professor Jamil Salem told PDOff that his family is able to bake bread at home, as his village of Saftawi receives about three hours of electricity per day. During that time they stock up on tap water. The tap water is not safe to drink, Salem said, but many local residents have been forced to consume it. Very rarely, water trucks drive through the neighborhoods, and residents can get potable water. DISPLACED ARE THE WORST OFF JERUSALEM 00000078 002 OF 002 =========================== ¶8. (C) As bad as many Gazans have it, all our contacts agreed that the situation is much worse for the internally displaced, many of whom are sheltering in UNRWA facilities. Abdel Raouf Asfour, the mayor of Abasan al-Jadeeda in the south, told USAID FSN that 135 families recently fled their homes on the outskirts of the town and moved into the local UNRWA school. More than a thousand people are now living in the school, according to Asfour, and are in desperate need of blankets and food. ¶9. (C) Natour said he visited the UNRWA school in Al-Nasser yesterday during the "pause" in fighting, and found over 1,300 people living there. Families were being provided with two blankets each and small amounts of bread and tuna for sustenance. Natour said people at the school were sleeping about 120 per each 30-meters-square classroom, and that women and men were segregated by a sheet strung through the middle of the room. Due to the crowding, many men are sleeping in the school corridors or outside in the playground, building fires to keep warm. GAZANS UNITE TO PROVIDE CHARITY =============================== ¶10. (C) Acts of charity to help the less fortunate continue throughout Gaza, according to contacts. A family relative told USAID FSN that local mosques in Gaza City have been asking people to donate blankets, food, and money, which are then provided to the displaced in the shelters. Natour said that young people all around Gaza had come together and started a "non-partisan" campaign called "Wa lau bish-shama'a" (Even Just a Candle),which has encouraged Gazans to contribute the most basic necessities to supplement the meager essentials the displaced need to survive. WALLES