Fssayil Jordan Valley: the residents are starving, exhausted and helpless

Two weeks prior to our going out I coordinated with “Rabbis for Human Rights” and Moussa, Maryam’s husband - we have been taking Maryam regularly to get injections in her eye, thanks to which she can now see again - to have a truck carry 70 crates of dry foods. We agreed that Moussa would prepare a list of the people most needy in Fassayil. Everyone is in fact needy now, as workers have been unemployed for half a year already, sitting idle at home because of the closure, while colonists continue to dispossess and expel dozens of shepherds with their flocks from their grazing grounds. Things in Fasail are dire. It was very difficult to distribute food only to the neediest. Every such crate contained flour, rice, pasta, sugar, oil, tuna, halvah, tea, lintels and more.

Last time we brought the crates to the homes. But everywhere we went came people who were no less needy. Hungry women chased us in tears when we left. Since the truck brings everything to one place, we decided that this time people would come to Moussa’s yard and we would distribute the food. Moussa prepared well and made a list of the poorest people - who should receive the crates, in itself a horrible task!

About an hour after we arrived, a stampede began of black- or dark purple-clad women, young and old, who began to grab the crates. We could not stop all these desperate women who took crates for themselves as well as for their families and neighbors. Two women took 14 crates. Moussa tried to stop them as much as he could, even yelled and pushed and took away from some of these women and returned the crates to the pile. On the other side came cars and waited for the mayhem to subside in order to get a crate. Tahreer, with whom we are in close contact and know that her condition is dire, as her husband has not been working for half a year, and she is ill - she managed to take crates for her two neighbors but had not the strength to take one for herself. I promised her to bring her one in my car when we are done.

Moussa lost it and yelled at the women, tore his shirt and poured ashes on his head for sheer desperation. Total chaos. We forcefully kept a few crates for people who could not come - ill and disabled - and drove the crates to their homes.

When done, we brought Tahreer her crate. When there, we found out she had brought a crate to the home entrance of Hajar, a woman ill with ALS, but someone stole it and we had not a single crate to give her. It was a moving moment as Tahreer, herself ill and extremely poor, who always asks us for medication and food for her children, said to us: I’ll give Hajar my crate.  An amazing gesture on the part of someone who has nothing, for someone who has even less… We drove to Hajar’s house and found her there in a poor, empty house, the entrance blocked by a gigantic air conditioning unit that no longer works but serves as a ventilator. She sat in the dark on her iron bed, her crutches nearby, and spoke in a weak voice. It was a saddening sight. We knew her in the past as an energetic woman who said forceful things even when she spoke in English.

Exhausted, we drove to visit the family of Mahmoud who has been sentenced to prison. This happened after in late October 2023 he shared a prayer on Facebook of an Imam who called upon God to avenge the death of children and women in Gaza. I have known Mahmoud for the past 15 years and is a good friend of many Israeli activists. He is definitely not political and certainly not an inciter. He shared disconcertedly. Stupidly, that is all. For this he has to pay by 5 months’ incarceration and a 2,000 shekel fine. Let us only mention that the entire Palestinian Jordan Valley is filled with signs calling Death to Arabs, and Members of Knesset calling for much worse. Without him, the entire burden of home and family falls on the shoulders of his wife alone. She is collapsing. All the wonderful farming initiatives of his suited his own energy. She has been left at home with his two sisters who are mentally limited, a pair of elderly parents (85) and small children. Now there is already a date for his release, even if far ahead (another two months). The now have it easier. His legal representation has cost

a lot of money that the family does not have, and they need donations urgently.