Butcher shop income sharply declines following the bombing of the power station in Gaza, August 2006

'Abd Rabo 'Afaneh, Butcher

There are twelve persons in my family: my wife and me and our ten children. We live in the Brazil neighborhood in Rafah. My extended family and I are butchers, and we import meat from Israel and abroad. We have no other source of livelihood.

I have worked as a butcher for twenty years, and own a shop in the Rafah market. Two of my adult sons work with me. We have good relations with the Israeli meat dealers, and until Israel closed the crossing for goods coming into the Gaza Strip, we used to go to Israel to inspect the meat and buy it directly from them and our business generated very good profits. We were able to make a living with dignity and felt secure.

Now, because of the Israeli closure of the Gaza Strip, we are unable to make a living with dignity. We are not allowed to enter Israel to buy the meat, and the situation worsens day by day. In the past, we sold about 12,000 shekels of meat a day, of which one thousand was profit. Now, our profit is only about 300 shekels a day. Also, we buy the meat from Israeli dealers by telephone. Because we can't inspect the meat, they sell us what they want and sometimes it is defective and unsuitable for human consumption. But we have no option other than buying from them. In addition, now, unlike in the past, they demand that we pay in advance. We make a bank transfer, and only then they send the meat, in the event that the Karni Crossing is open.

When Israel announces that the crossing will be open on a certain day, we buy large amounts of meat, fearing that Israel will close the crossing for a long time. We store the meat in refrigerators to keep it fresh. When Israel bombed the Gaza power plant on 28 June, everything changed. There have been prolonged power stoppages, and we can't store large quantities of meat. We can't work when there is no electricity. Also, the residents don't have electricity at home, so they can't store the meat they buy. Fearing that the meat will spoil, they have been buying less meat than before. Our sales have dropped by seventy-five percent. The residents buy a quarter kilo of meat rather than a kilo. They also buy less because of the harsh state of the economy, which means they don't have money. In addition, the Palestinian Authority does not have money to pay its workers. A kilo of meat costs from 40-45 shekels a kilo, which is a lot of money for the people here. They don't buy meat every day or two, like they used to. Now they buy once a week on average. Some of the families buy even less than that.

When we are working and there is a power stoppage, we turn on the generator. Now all the profits go for paying for the diesel fuel to operate the generator. Sometimes the power stoppage lasts a long time and we have to run the generator all that time. We run the generator about twelve hours a day. The power stoppages have increased the demand for diesel fuel needed to operate the generators. Sometimes there is a shortage of fuel, and we have to pay six shekels a liter rather than the fixed price of four shekels. The higher price adds to our losses. We are spending 360 shekels a day on diesel fuel.

The meat is also more expensive than previously, about five shekels more a kilo, so we had to raise the price for the consumer. Because of the drastic drop in sales, we had to lay off six employees. Together, they support about thirty-five persons. I just don't have the money to pay their salaries.

'Abd Rabo Muhammad 'Abd al-'Aziz 'Afaneh, 42, married with ten children, is a butcher and a resident of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. His testimony was given to Muhammad Sabah on 25 August 2006.