Food Parcels


We are happy to announce that the food packages that are a part of Caritas Jerusalem Emergency appeal have now arrived into the Gaza Strip.
Caritas

The process of transporting the food to Gaza was extremely difficult. Caritas staff faced many obstacles in delivering the goods. Our staff and volunteers packaged the food on January 31, 2009 but they arrived into the Gaza Strip on February the 5th. 

Restrictions and regulations imposed by Israel on goods entering into Gaza have created many complications. The process is long and tedious.   Our coordinator Juma Khadora along with some volunteers received the packages at 9 pm on the 5th of February. They had to unload three trucks of 4840 packages into the warehouses in Gaza.  The process took hours of work. They finished unloading At 2AM. The uses of the warehouses were donated to Caritas by a Palestinian citizen.  The packages were loaded on WFP trucks according to agreement. Unfortunately, 120 packages are missing. We hope to recuperate them from WFP.  The process of distributing the packages has begun on the 6th of February. The lists of names were coordinated with  UNRWA and WFP. Today there is a committee in Gaza that supervises the distribution to make sure that there is no duplication. Our coordinator Juma’ is a member of this committee.

Our food packages will be distributed in the following areas:

  • Rafah
  • Khan Younis
  • Ezbet Abed Rabo
  • Hojor Al Deek
  • Beit Lahya

1,920 Gazan families will have the chance to receive 2 boxes of food from Caritas Jerusalem. The two boxes contain the following items: Oil, flour, rice sugar, tea, tomato paste, meat cans, tuna, sardine, spaghetti, lentils, Halaweh, beans, chick peas, milk, sesame cream (Tahina) and cheese.

Blankets

Caritas Youth volunteers in Bethlehem helped package 1000 blankets in order to be delivered to the Gaza Strip.The blankets arrived into Gaza on the 5th of February, to the Red Crescent warehouses. The process of distributing the blankets has begun and the recipients are:1–Al Ahli Hospital.2– To be distributed through the Gaza parish.3– To the families who lost their homes and now are living in tents in Ezbet Abed Rabo, Hojor Al Deek, Beit Lahia, and Al Ataita.

Medical

Transporting of medicine into the Gaza Strip was complicated.  On and off, the crossings were closed and only certain quantity of aid was allowed into Gaza. The medicine was at WHO warehouse in Ramallah for a period of two weeks.Finally, after two weeks part of the medicine has been delivered to Al Shifa, Al Aqsa, and Kamal Odwan hospitals.  The other packages are still at WHO warehouse waiting to be forwarded to Gaza by WHO.

Cash Money

Two- thousand families from the Gaza Strip will receive cash money. The families were chosen according to assessments that were made by Caritas staff and social department. Already 94 families have received financial support.  40 of those families were the ones who were stranded in Ramallah during the Christmas season.