Gaza families eat grass as border is locked..
When you are tucking into your Turkey dinner, spare a thought for those less fortunate.................
AS a convoy of blue-and-white United Nations trucks loaded with food waited last night for Israeli permission to enter Gaza, Jindiya Abu Amra and her 12-year-old daughter went scrounging for the wild grass their family now lives on.
“We had one meal today - khobbeizeh,” said Abu Amra, 43, showing the leaves of a plant that grows along the streets of Gaza. “Every day, I wake up and start looking for wood and plastic to burn for fuel and I beg. When I find nothing, we eat this grass.”
Abu Amra and her unemployed husband have seven daughters and a son. Their tiny breeze-block house has had no furniture since they burnt the last cupboard for heat.
“I can’t remember seeing a fruit,” said Rabab, 12, who goes with her mother most mornings to scavenge. She is dressed in a tracksuit top and holed jeans, and her feet are bare.
Conditions for most of the 1.5m Gazans have deteriorated dramatically in the past month, since a truce between Israel and Hamas, the ruling Islamist party, broke down.
Israel says it will open the borders again when Hamas stops launching rockets at southern Israel. Hamas says it will crack down on the rocket launchers when Israel opens the borders.
The fragile truce technically ends this Thursday, and there have been few signs it will be renewed. Nobody knows how to resolve the stalemate. Secret talks are under way through Egyptian intermediaries, although both sides deny any contact.
Israel controls the borders and allows in humanitarian supplies only sporadically. Families had electricity for six hours a day last week. Cooking gas was available only through the illegal tunnels that run into Egypt, and by last week had jumped in price from 80 shekels per canister (£14) to 380 shekels (£66).
The UN, which has responsibility for 1m refugees in Gaza, is in despair. “The economy has been crushed and there are no imports or exports,” said John Ging, director of its relief and works agency.
“Two weeks ago, for the first time in 60 years, we ran out of food,” he said. “We used to get 70 to 80 trucks per day, now we are getting 15 trucks a day, and only when the border opens. We’re living hand to mouth.”
He has four days of food in stock for distribution to the most desperate - and no idea whether Israel will reopen the border. The Abu Amra family may have to eat wild grass for the foreseeable future.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5338014.ece
Cause they got any home to live & nothing to eat ,even kids hunted by Israeli Armies &all money goes to Government Pockets & you think they got money but searching for Grass to eat instead of farm the land, sorry but it seems that we did got an absent mind in this case
And why is that so funny?
i always ask: why Palestine wouldn't invest these billions of Dollar in the ECONOMIC and infrastructure? Put some plants, produce whatever.. raise avocado, olives, etc...build chicken/turkey farms.. why to eat grass??
HAHAHAHAHAAAA very funny
why shouldn't we?......
haha did u guys took me serious... i know he is from pak land
lol.. lost_odeassy, you are funny...
we also have one man over 66 years old called Alexa..:)
.. and somebody from Antarctica, and another one from the North pole.. :):)
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“You become responsible forever for what you have tamed”. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
lost_odeassy....do not believe all you see in profiles ;)
It is good at least people are caring... we should all try to help regardless of who they are and shame on those people who try to make other suffer... i noticed we actually have one Israeli on this form.. his name is draude or something in his profile... will be interesting to hear his comments
just want to add:
There is a wise saying: DO NOT feed the hungry one! Teach him how to get the food!
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“You become responsible forever for what you have tamed”. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
timtan, what it has to do with the "natural elements"? This is wrong explanation. Do you mean the people of the country are rich if there are natural resources in country? and people are poor if there are no resources? not at all... here are two examples:
1. Japan. do they have Gold? Oil? Woods? "Poor guys" don't even have a LAND... they are about 50 years AHEAD of the whole world! you know that Japanese is not allowed to leave the country with the latest version of any technological device?
2. Russia. They have EVERYTHING, and even more... people in remote areas are still POOR like rats...BUT..a lots of people did became richer after the SYSTEM has changed..(the resources are still the same, if not less)
...A SYSTEM matters, not the natural resources... at least not ONLY natural resources...
i always ask: why Palestine wouldn't invest these billions of Dollar in the ECONOMIC and infrastructure? Put some plants, produce whatever.. raise avocado, olives, etc...build chicken/turkey farms.. why to eat grass??
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“You become responsible forever for what you have tamed”. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
No way would i give money! I save very hard to waste my money on the lottery and I'd rather give to animal charities....like adopt a dog or summat...
Yes, when the day comes I want to be able to stand before God and say that I did what I could and whether or not it helped was not up to me. I just can't say that I didn't try because I thought it would be too little, wouldn't get there, etc.
Mandi
QS, the Isrealis freeze most of the money that is given to them... And/or seal the borders so that supplies cannot be brought into the country...
May Allaah break the backs of the zionist Isrealis... Ameen.
They call it the American dream because you have to be asleep to see it... --George Carlin
I know QS, i think about that too, but i still prefer to send and sincerely hope that it reaches them even if its a little amount that reaches them, theres isnt another option. I hate the thought of kids having no food to eat, epecially when i think of how much my kids have...
nadt... sweetie... you send "a lot of money through financial aids to Palestine"... and can I ask you, where is your money? and where is money of other thousands of people that send it to Palestine? let alone your money.. where are BILLIONS of dollars that USA sends to them? where are BILLIONS of Euro that europe send to them?? i always really curious: WHERE IS THE MONEY??? why people eat the grass?
can someone give me a clear answer, please?
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“You become responsible forever for what you have tamed”. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
now history!
well said mandilur...
Drac, I have been to that very place - where the road from Al Quds goes to Bethlehem - and the wall looks exactly like that. 8 meters high and three meters thick. It's enough to break God's heart. But we will keep commenting and talking and shouting until we are noticed. So many times I will bring up the subject in the US only to be met by amazed stares. We must not let the world claim that they didn't know what was happening.
Mandi
do you think the world will be a better place if all the people in the world think the way you do? (timtam)
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veni, vidi, vici.
well for your information i do send a lot of money through financial aids to Palestine, and just because i cant do anything about it on a political basis doesnt mean that i/we shouldnt care about whats going on there, but to be ruthless and stop caring, well thats very low..That family can be any of us one day trying to feed our kids, you never know when the table turns..Anyway theres no point expalianing it to you, youve made your feeling quite clear..
It seems so helpless........
what a sad state this is, and as for timtan, your even sadder than what i originally thought..If grass is so good for you, i sincerely hope that you reach a stage in your life where your only source of food is grass...politics is one thing, but these innocent people caught in between is another.
"Can’t see what the problem is.. "
how insensitive... this isnt just about being forced to eat grass., these people are repress in many ways.
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veni, vidi, vici.
TimTan you forgot the resist part... Or do they not teach you that in the Thai military? =)
They call it the American dream because you have to be asleep to see it... --George Carlin
Grass is actually very nutritious, especially the shoots........and when arranged on a nice square porcelain plate like what the cooks use on telly, I'm sure grass could look very nice....with a grass shoot to garnish.......
This is really shocking , where are the great humanitarian now ?
One who hasn't taken risks hasn't lived
Shoot! This is indeed a sad thing. To know people are starving is a human debacle. I'm optimistic that there will be some serious talks between the two states since its the only peaceful solution left.
cheers,
paul
yeah,, they are indeed in a sad state, saw one documentary in al jazeera. these people are really in a terrible condition. As for the Israelis..., .... .... ...
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veni, vidi, vici.
What a sad state -- where the heck is the international community, wher the heck is the human rights?..
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Every society is judged by how
it treats it's least fortunates.