KEY POINTS:
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, Yusef wouldn't have dreamed 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 1000 to 1200 shekels (NZ$370 to $450) 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, 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 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 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.
Yusef says that "of course" his children - aged from six to 22 - are eating less and losing weight and he points out that he has lost 2.5 stone since Israel tightened its blockade on all goods, except humanitarian essentials, after Hamas seized control of Gaza by force in June.
No fan of Hamas, he adds: "I don't stop thinking about this, from all angles, politically and economically. Sometimes I can't sleep."
When Yusef was interviewed by The Independent in December 2006, nine months after the elected Hamas government took office and the international blockade began, he admitted to severe problems but tried to stay cheerful. Now he says, things are a "lot worse". For a while, he just managed to make ends meet by being a satellite television repair man a few days a month. Now he works a single day a month, earning between 50 and 100 shekels.
Mostly, Yusef keeps his composure about his deep poverty. But now he lowers his head, close to tears. "The other day three of my kids were fighting over one pen. In the end they had to use the same one to do their homework."
- INDEPENDENT
