'We didn't eat at all in the day,' says father plunged into poverty

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In theory Adeeb Yusef, 45, who has seven children, is luckier than some others in Gaza. As a refugee he receives, like more than 700,000 Gazans, at least a quarterly consignment of basics such as flour, oil, sugar and a few cans of meat from the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

In better days which lasted throughout the worst of the intifada, Mr Yusef wouldn't have dreamt of even collecting the ration because he got up at 4am each morning to go to work as a welder in Israel or at the now-flattened Erez industrial zone in north Gaza, earning from 1,000 to 1,200 shekels (£147 to £176) a week. But his present plight goes deeper than the real humiliation of a once-proud provider becoming wholly dependent on aid.

On Wednesday this week, Mr Yusef explains, his family didn't eat during daylight at all. "We had our breakfast in the evening. My wife said: 'All day you haven't been able to find something.' A visiting friend overheard and lent Mr Yusef 10 shekels to buy some luncheon meat, which provided their one meal of the day. The last time his family ate meat was on 5 April when his son, a member of the old Fatah-dominated security forces, was paid his £220 monthly salary from Ramallah.

"Every month he is paid I buy some kebab because the children are always asking for a treat," he says. But because Mr Yusef rents his house – at £66, plus £37 for water and power, and because he is still paying off debts, "the whole salary goes in a single day". And the UNRWA ration, he adds, is usually used up in a month.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/we-didnt-eat-at-all-in-the-day-says-father-plunged-into-poverty-819730.html

[Vegasaurus]

1. Believe it or not, he is luckier than many across the globe

Haiti’s hunger, that burn in the belly that so many here feel, has become fiercer than ever in recent days as global food prices spiral out of reach, spiking as much as 45 percent since the end of 2006 and turning Haitian staples like beans, corn and rice into closely guarded treasures.

Saint Louis Meriska’s children ate two spoonfuls of rice apiece as their only meal recently and then went without any food the following day. His eyes downcast, his own stomach empty, the unemployed father said forlornly, “They look at me and say, ‘Papa, I’m hungry,’ and I have to look away. It’s humiliating and it makes you angry.”

That anger is palpable across the globe. The food crisis is not only being felt among the poor but is also eroding the gains of the working and middle classes, sowing volatile levels of discontent and putting new pressures on fragile governments.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/world/americas/18food.html?_r=1

Hunger is becoming a worldwide problem, exacerbated in Gaza, by its ongoing conflict with Israel.

At least the Gazans have UNRWA aid. Many people in the world are not so lucky.

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2. Israelis are not in a partying mood

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Israelis are still gloomy about the country's perceived failures in the 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and every day brings fresh reminders that no solution has been found for the growing problem of cross-border rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.

"I don't see Israel as a failure, but what makes this anniversary less of a celebration is that we cannot proclaim a happy ending," veteran Israeli journalist Nahum Barnea, a columnist for the daily Yediot Achronot, said in an interview. "We did not reach a point that we can say, 'OK, the period of state building is finished, and now we can live happily after.'"

The contradictions of life here can be painful. Israel has an outwardly robust economy that produces high-tech giants but also a record number of people living in poverty. There is a feeling of security that has come with a decline in terrorism-related deaths, but also a widespread resignation that peace remains a distant dream.

All this, to say nothing of government corruption, one of the problems most troubling Israelis.

http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=19312

[Vegasaurus]

3. I don't know many countries that can say they "live happily after"

Countries aren't static so that they ever reach a "final" state (of happiness or anything else).

Israel certainly has its own share of poverty though, like every nation.

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4. Just trying to provide equal time. nt