Resolved to survive deplorable human conditions and severe financial crunch, Palestinians are resorting to primitive means to make ends meet in view of the aid freeze by the West since the new Hamas-led government came to power.
Suffering a severe food and fuel shortage, many Palestinians have sought to produce basic staples like bread and use wood as a source of energy, Reuters reported Friday, May 13.
"I have to use this primitive method to save money and feed my children," said Hind Ahmad, a Palestinian school principal.
At her home in the village of Kufr Ein, near Ramallah, the 52-year-old woman is using wood to cook and bake bread in a makeshift clay over to feed her children.
She said she was relying on rice she had bought before and vegetables planted in her back yard.
Hind is one of 165,000 Palestinian employee who have been unpaid for two months after the United States and the European Union suspended direct aid to the new Palestinian government.
Israel has further stopped transferring customs duties worth around $50 million a month and previously collected for the Palestinian Authority.
The United Nations has warned that the Palestinians are on the verge of a humanitarian crisis due to severe shortage of food and medicine.
Using Donkeys
Many Palestinians have further given up public transport to save some money.
Hind's male colleagues started using donkeys to get to school.
In hard times, Um Mohammad, another teacher in Kufr Ein and a mother of eight two of whom are university students, is acting with a sense of responsibility.
"I never cooked on wood and I am allergic to smoke but I have to save money in every way possible, no matter how primitive it is. This is my responsibility," she said.
Um Mohammed said she was also thinking of selling her jewellery, although so far her parents and brothers were helping her make do with daily living expenses.
"I only want to see the kids graduate. Nothing more. In the village, we can live on land," she said.
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have sought to sell their gold coins and bracelets, which are traditionally a person's last source of wealth in the Arab world, next to land, to try to get together enough money to buy food.
Many fund-raising campaigns have been launched in many Arab and Muslim countries for the Palestinians.
The Arab Doctors Union launched on May 5, in Cairo an ambitious campaign throughout the Arab world to raise one billion euros for the Palestinians.
Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday, May 12, the League would not be able to transfer funds directly to the Palestinians.
Several banks have refused to transfer millions of dollars donated by Arabs and Muslims or some governments to the Palestinian Authority fearing American sanctions.
The Arab Bank, which holds some 30,000 accounts of PA workers, refrained from accepting such transfer after the US threatened to deem this as assistance to Hamas.
A report by Israel's Haaretz daily on May 4 said that several initiatives by donor states to get money directly to the Palestinians are being thwarted by the US.
