Attah Qasem is a 29-year-old Palestinian who lives with his wife and 2-year-old son in a small room in his father’s house in the al-Shati Refugee Camp west of Gaza City. A second child is on the way, which is both happy news and a source of anxiety.
Read MoreRecently, a friend guided me to a refugee camp in western Gaza by the beach, called the al-Shati Camp. The camp, whose residents include 84,000 Palestinian refugees forced by the Israelis to leave their homes in 1949, is the oldest and largest camp in the Strip.
Read MoreWhen you live mired in poverty, every detail of daily life is a challenge. Abeer and Salah al-Akharsah, along with their seven children (and an eighth on the way), live in a remote area of the Gaza Strip—Eraiba, northwest of Rafah. Salah, 41, used to earn a decent income as a trader of goods transported through the tunnels connecting Gaza with Egypt.
Read MoreI was not prepared for what I found when I visited the al-Malalha family in Rafah, in the far south of the Gaza Strip. Their street was lightless, but the dim glow of the moon helped me see so I could walk without tripping. It was lined with farmland and greenhouses. Nothing could be heard but the sound of crickets.
Read MoreOver the past 10 years, three wars waged on the Gaza Strip have had devastating effects on the population of 2 million in both large and small ways. Since the first war in 2008/09, says Hedaya Abu Lehia, a technician assistant at the El-Amal Audiology Clinic, Gaza has seen a 30 percent increase in hearing impairment. The reason, she reports, is the exposure to loud explosions.
Read MoreThere's an old axiom that says, "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime." However, the Women's Programs Centre in Gaza's city of Rafah believes it should be rewritten this way, "Teach a woman to fish, and everyone eats for a lifetime."
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