Photo: During a recent visit to Gaza, Joanna Hiebert Bergen, MCC Palestine representative, surveys the destruction of a home in Beit Hanoun, north Gaza, caused by the recent Israel-Hamas conflict. Photo by Alain Epp Weaver.

Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is providing food baskets, hygiene supplies, blankets and school kits for Gazan families, who are piecing their lives together in the midst of the devastation left by the Israel-Hamas conflict in July and August.

In the 50-day battle, at least 1,473 Palestinians civilians and five Israeli civilians were killed, according to United Nations statistics. In Gaza about 160,000 people are living in U.N. emergency shelters or with family because their houses were severely damaged or destroyed.

Nearly all Gazans are in need of food assistance, the U.N. estimated in September.

Alain Epp Weaver, co-director of MCC Planning, Learning and Disaster Response, who visited Gaza in September, said the destruction in Shejaiyeh District of Gaza City, where he lived in the mid to late 1990s, was shocking.

“A densely packed neighborhood, Shejaiyeh used to be full of life and vibrancy, with shopkeepers selling their wares, children playing impromptu games in the alleys and streets, sellers on donkey carts making deliveries,” Epp Weaver said. “It was gut-wrenching to now walk through the same neighborhood and look over a desolated landscape of broken concrete and twisted metal.”

Through Al Najd Development Forum, a long-time MCC partner and community-based organization that provides programs and services for Gazan women and their families, MCC is providing monthly food baskets for 460 families through March 2015.

The food baskets contain rice, lentils, bulgur, pasta, canned meat, canned beans, vegetable oil, tomato paste, tea, sugar and salt. They are funded through MCC’s account in the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.

In addition, MCC is buying hygiene items in Gaza for 430 families until MCC’s shipment arrives with 4,145 blankets, 3,183 pounds of laundry soap, 3,488 kits of school supplies and 902 kits for newborns. The shipment left Plum Couleee, Man., Oct. 14.

Epp Weaver said the recovery in Gaza will go on for years to come, unless Israel lifts its restrictions on imports and exports in and out of Gaza. Over the past several years, Israel has increasingly tightened its severe restrictions on material going into the Gaza Strip, typically citing security concerns.

“The response to basic human needs needs to be done hand-in-hand with advocacy for the freedom of movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza,” Epp Weaver said. “There can’t be a sustainable economy in Gaza where people are food secure and have sustainable livelihoods without that freedom of movement.”

MCC partners estimate that rebuilding the public infrastructure, schools and houses would take 20 years at the rate that Israel allowed construction supplies to enter Gaza before the most recent conflict, Epp Weaver said.

The MCC U.S. Washington Office encourages people living in the U.S. to ask their legislators to pressure Israel to lift the import restrictions. To read more on this issue and to write to your representative, visit this link.

In Gaza, MCC Palestine staff continue to work with local partner organizations to assess short-term and long-term needs.

People living in temporary shelters, apartments and homes with holes in walls and damaged roofs fear the seasonal rains and cold weather that comes from October through February, said Joanna Hiebert Bergen, MCC Palestine representative with her husband, Dan Bergen, both of Winnipeg, Man.

Some livelihood projects that MCC has supported through Foods Resource Bank, including a rabbit rearing project, have been debilitated.

Forty percent of the rabbits died when owners fled their homes due to the bombing campaigns.

In spite of the obstacles facing Gazans, they have been courageous and resilient in the midst of the crisis and its aftermath, helping each other do whatever has to be done to survive, Epp Weaver said. Volunteers from churches and community based organizations, including Al Najd, worked in the midst of the violence to make sure that people had shelter and food.

Al Najd volunteers distributed MCC-supported food baskets in the first two days of the crisis and later delivered mattresses, pillows and bedding sets to families, especially those who were hosting displaced people. During the crisis, Gazans whose homes were not damaged opened their homes not only to family and friends, but also to strangers, Epp Weaver said.

“I was overwhelmed by the resilience and spirit of the people of Gaza. These are living, breathing people who are resisting where they can, surviving where they can,” Epp Weaver said. “MCC is privileged to work with these organizations that are helping people meet basic human needs with an eye toward peace and reconciliation.”

Linda Espenshade is news coordinator for MCC U.S.