For almost two decades, Mohammed Abu Rajab and Rabah Odeh have been working in infrastructural development in the West Bank and Gaza as field staff for American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA), which focuses on meeting the development and humanitarian needs of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and refugee camps in Lebanon since 1968. On their recent trip to the United States to attend the annual ANERA dinner in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 7th 2016, Mr. Abu Rajab and Mr. Odeh were able to visit the Palestine Center. During this time, the Palestine Center’s Fall 2016 interns, Jada Bullen and Marie Helmy, had the opportunity to sit down and speak with them about the challenges and triumphs of their work in Palestine.
Below are excerpts from the interview, which has been condensed and edited from its original form.
To begin, can you both tell us about your backgrounds and how you began working with ANERA?
Odeh: I’ve been with ANERA for the past 15 years or so. I’m now holding the position of Deputy Chief of Party for a major USAID-funded project named PCID—that’s an acronym for Palestinian Community Infrastructure Development Program. It’s a $100 million program implemented over the period of 5 years, where we’re basically implementing infrastructure projects, i.e. water projects, water networks, water tanks, and water drainage projects in villages and small communities; we’re constructing schools and kindergartens; we’re constructing health clinics and several types of other projects throughout the West Bank and Gaza.
Abu Rajab: I started with ANERA in 2002—that’s almost 15 years ago. I’m working in the capacity of the Chief Engineer and the Director of the ANERA office in the Southern West Bank. I’m working on the same program, as my colleague mentioned. We are really happy to work with this organization as a neutral and nonpolitical organization, so I feel that we are helping our people in achieving their goals, doing what is really—maybe some people would call it development—but I would really call it human rights, because water is a human right, education is a human right, health is a human right.
You mentioned PCID (the Palestinian Community Infrastructure Development Program), an expansive project started in 2013. Could you talk more about the implementation process at your sites in Nablus and Hebron?
Odeh: Implementation is throughout the West Bank. We’re able to work all the way from the Jenin down to Hebron and including the Gaza strip. In Gaza, we’re one of the few organizations who is really active and able to implement infrastructure projects.
In Nablus, people live in really harsh conditions. Basically, ANERA takes care of the daily needs of Palestinians living in refugee camps. It means ANERA provides healthcare, education, and other day-to-day services in such camps. The day-to-day life we live is a bit hard. We need to commute on a daily basis to get to project sites and to our main office in Jerusalem, for meetings and for day-to-day business. And with Israeli checkpoints—you could easily get shot and killed at a checkpoint just passing by.
Despite that, we continue to do what we do best: we deliver projects. We do that on time, we do that with the best quality. Our donor is pleased, and this is what’s most important because that is what guarantees that more money will come in to help people. That is our ultimate goal—to make the lives of people easier and better under such truly harsh conditions.
Abu Rajab: I came from Hebron. I’m responsible for the Southern West Bank, but Hebron has its special conditions. The problem in Hebron is that the occupation is still there. In some areas, it’s direct, and in some areas, it’s indirect, but at any time the Israeli military can come and make incursions.
I don’t want to talk further in politics, let’s talk about projects. We are proud that we recently completed the construction of the Al-Walajeh Clinic, in a village located between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Israel is now creating a gate for each and every city in the West Bank—if not a gate, at least a checkpoint—that sometimes prevents people from getting access to healthcare. So, this clinic will help these people really access health care.
Recently we completed, in the South, the construction of a school, making additional classrooms for a small Bedouin and refugee community that’s located in the Hebron area. It’s a co-educational school. When the girls reach 6th grade, they just stop going to school—the parents would not allow them to cross to the nearby villages because they are afraid for the girls, and they go after shepherds and the have early marriages. So we succeeded, with the help of USAID, to construct a school that they were very happy about.
The problem we are facing is the weakness of the Palestinian Authority because they have no strong hold over the areas. When you call them, they have to coordinate with the Israeli side. The control of Israel over all the natural resources, the borders, and the telecommunications, makes it impossible. They talk about the “Two-State Solution,” which I think is impossible to implement on the ground, especially if you see the Palestinian villages, the settlements, the refugee camps. We hope peace one day will come, if we accept each other and we look to each other in the eye of humanity. So, this is what we wish to do.
Your colleague in Gaza was unable to travel here today—do these restrictions on mobility influence your daily work in terms of travel and transporting materials?
Odeh: Gaza is a different story. It’s much harder to work in Gaza. Getting in and out of Gaza needs special permits.
The lady engineer who works with us in Gaza couldn’t come simply because the Israelis had denied her the permit to get out of Gaza. They gave her a permit a few weeks earlier to go to the American consulate in Jerusalem to get a visa, but the Israelis denied the visa under a given reason of being a threat to the security. A week earlier, she wasn’t a threat to the security, and then a week later, she’s a threat to the security. She now has to wait at least for 6 months before she applies for a permit to get out of Gaza again. This is how hard it is.
You need to have permits for everything. We have been trying to get permits for us to go and follow up our projects in Gaza. So far, we have not been successful—it takes time and lots of effort and follow up only to be able to go and visit Gaza. They have their own classification of material. A sack of cement is, under Israeli definition, a dual-use material, where you can use it to construct a wall or a building, or you can use it to construct a tunnel that could be a threat to their security. With every project we implement in Gaza, we need to submit an application with a very detailed bill of quantity or list of items that need a permit to be brought into Gaza. And that process takes months—like 2, 3 or 4 months—only to be able to get the permit to bring in material to Gaza. Despite that, we’re one of few organizations who are still able to implement actual projects in Gaza, where people benefit from such projects.
You both mentioned how Israeli policies have disrupted a lot of your work. Could you talk more about how Israeli imposition affects Palestinian lives? What are some of the concerns of this generation?
Odeh: The future isn’t that bright. The unbelievable increase in settlement activities throughout the West Bank, the Israeli measures underground, are all adding to the negative atmosphere, and people are starting to get hopeless.
I guess the future is the main issue on the minds of our children. Rightfully so, it’s not the nicest place in the world to live at, with all the killing and arrests. Unemployment rates are high. The only sources of income are basically employment within the Palestinian Authority system. An employee working for the PA will be getting an average of 1,000 dollars per month and that is way below the poverty line. The local market isn’t full of opportunities. Agriculture used to be one of the main sources of income, but with most of the land taken by the Israelis—confiscated for the construction of the wall—lots of people have lost their land and are not able to cultivate them anymore.
I got sick of this valtrexlab.com terrible infectious disease 5 years ago and I am still sick with it because genital herpes is incurable. The necessary test results confirmed that I had HSV of the 2nd type. I started to look for ways of treatment. I visited many specialists, gynecologists, immunologists, infectious disease specialists and virologists.
Abu Rajab: The farmers are really in a challenge. If the political situation is okay, [Israel] will allow them to export their product. If not, they won’t allow it.
Odeh: Israel controls sources of water. Israel is providing water to Israelis farmers at subsidized prices and it’s not even making it available to Palestinians, even at higher prices. So, Palestinian farmers cannot compete. They are not allowed to dig their own water wells or update the ones that they already have or even to replace a pumping unit on a water well. They need an Israeli permit to do that, and Israelis don’t give out those permits. Israeli farmers get to export their produce to the whole world—overnight shipping can export their dates to the whole world. At the same time, Palestinians living in the Jordan Valley aren’t able to export the dates they produce. It’s unjust.
Abu Rajab: In the Southern West Bank, near Hebron, the USAID invested millions constructing six wells for the area where the Israelis on the other side, they dug deeper and took all the water, and the six wells are not functioning. The money is just for nothing. Farmers cannot really guarantee what will happen and how they are even going to gain from what they have spent.
Odeh: This is the reality.
Given these challenges, are there any current or future ANERA projects that you are looking forward to?
Abu Rajab: ANERA is negotiating with Turkey to renovate some of the building from the Ottoman era in the West Bank. This will also help keep the culture and the old buildings in good conditions
Odeh: Recently, ANERA has been looking into expanding their early childhood development programs, agricultural programs that have to do with ways to water reuse, land reclamation and ideas that have to do with tourism. We had a tourism project that was funded by USAID in Lebanon a few years ago, so ANERA management is looking into replicating that in Palestine. But again, any kind of intervention would need to be studied before presenting to a donor because of the political and security situation in the country.
You both have been with ANERA for over a decade; what do you feel has been the most rewarding project that you have worked on since you began?
Abu Rajab: All our projects are very important. We work in the different sectors. In education, we enter communities that they never have schools; we constructed the schools. We work in water sector where the municipal water had never been there, and they depend on just getting water through wells and unhealthy water. We did renovations of hospitals, construction of clinics, construction of agriculture roads and roads in general. So, it is all benefiting the community where we are from.
Odeh: You can certainly put it this way; if it’s not going to change people’s lives, if it’s not really needed, then we won’t do it.
Abu Rajab: And we will continue, inshallah.
If you would like to read the original version of this interview, please click the following link:
