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Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)

One Year after Assault, the Disaster in Gaza Continues

By: Claire Gilbert | août 26, 2015

One year ago today, the 51-day campaign of bombing, tank fire and all-out destruction by the Israeli military on Gaza finally ended. The 51 days of darkness euphemistically dubbed “Operation Protective Edge” were the third and most deadly round in a series of violent assaults on Gaza.
It is truly difficult, perhaps impossible to imagine life in Gaza, then and now, for the 1.8 million people who live there. First of all, there is the trauma.
“This is not about people who were killed, it is about us who were waiting for death every minute,” said Dr. Mona El-Farra to Grassroots International supporter and author Alice Rothschild during her recent visit to Gaza. Dr. El-Farra is the director of the Red Crescent Memorial Hospital that was bombed during the attacks.
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Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)

Summer Grantmaking at Grassroots International

By: Lydia Simas | juillet 27, 2015

Grassroots International stands with people on the frontlines of defending the human rights to water, land, and food. Recently, we awarded more than 15 grants to movements in Haiti, Latin America, Palestine, West Africa and India – bolstering the efforts of those leading the global struggle for climate justice and creating sustainable solutions that we can all learn from.
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Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)

3 Stories on Mother’s Day

By: Shannon Duncan Bodwell | mai 8, 2015

This Mother’s Day we want to tell you three stories that keep the original spirit of Mother’s Day alive – justice, protecting their children, and unity. It’s a far cry from the fancy brunches and greeting cards that fill in for Mother’s Day now and instead returns to the political history of the holiday: of women working in the 1850s and 1860s to improve sanitary conditions, lower infant mortality, and unite a once-divided country through pacifism after the Civil War when the idea of Mother’s Day first came about.
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Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)

Women Changing the World

By: Lydia Simas | mars 6, 2015

International Women’s Day (March 8) celebrates the power and struggle of women all over the world. There are so many stories of women’s strength, inspiration and bold leadership in the work of our partners and grantees. Eighty-eight percent of the groups that Grassroots International supports work to promote women’s rights. Here are just some of the women-led projects that we have supported over the past year.
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Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)

A Mother’s Grief for Children Caught in the Eye of the Storm

By: Claire Gilbert | juillet 24, 2014

On the way to a camping trip on Cape Cod last week, my family made a pit stop at a gas station. My partner took our four-year-old to the bathroom and I picked up a copy of the New York Times. I felt the ground shift as I saw the image of a tiny boy lying dead on the beach.
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Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)

Recovery in Gaza After Winter Storm Alexa

By: Mina Remy | janvier 22, 2014

The occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) faced one of the worst winter storms seen in decades last month. The West Bank experienced record snow fall, which municipalities were ill-equipped to handle. While Gaza was spared much of the snow, the Strip received a devastating wintry mix of freezing rain, strong winds, and bitter cold that paralyzed an area considered a humanitarian crisis long before the storm.
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Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)

Advances on the Journey to Food Sovereignty and Human Rights

By: Jonathan Leaning | décembre 19, 2013

This last year has seen many advances around the globe for communities and activists pushing to regain their fundamental human rights to land, water, and food. As we now approach the end of 2013, we take this opportunity a look back at some of the accomplishments that have marked the year. In spite of the great challenges—and seemingly insurmountable odds—there is much to celebrate. Below are some of many highlights from the last year.

Winning land for formerly landless farmers in Brazil
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Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)

Palestinian NGOs Issue Statement Condemning World Bank-sponsored Red-Dead Sea Canal

By: Mina Remy | novembre 5, 2013

The $10-billion proposed canal would divert water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea in an effort to save the later from “environmental degradation.” The project is a partnership between Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. Grassroots International partners the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees, Palestinian Center for Human Rights, and Stop the Wall are among the signatories to the statement below that calls for a halt to the project. Palestinian organizations cite both political and environmental reasons for their calls to stop this water and land grab that would impede Palestinian rights.
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Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)

The Story of Manal Abu Shalouf

By: Carol Schachet | juillet 16, 2013

Here in the office of Grassroots International hang many pictures of our partners from around the world. One we all love features a beautiful Palestinian girl proudly hugging a huge turnip grown in her family’s garden plot. In fact, we so appreciate the picture that we created a greeting card with her image and story, and many recipients have asked: “What happened to her? Where is she today?”
Here’s her story.
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Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)

Water for Life, Water for All

By: Carol Schachet | janvier 7, 2013

Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories (oPt) has not only physically dominated the land that supports the Palestinian people but also the vital water resources that feed the land. The natural cycles and recharging of these important water resources have been altered by the systematic confiscation and control policies imposed by Israel that deny Palestinians’ right to the water resources in the oPt. Drought-induced water scarcity, poor sanitation conditions and low economic development further add to the hardship of water-starved Palestinians.
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Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)

Four Years on from Operation Cast Lead: Worsening Impacts of Israeli Military Aggression on Community Agriculture in Gaza

By: Sara Mersha | janvier 2, 2013

Last week marked the 4^th anniversary of Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s deadly 23-day military offensive launched in 2008, which resulted in the killing of 1,167 civilians and injury to 5,300 more in Gaza. It also caused widespread destruction of infrastructure in the already besieged Gaza Strip, which had been struggling under the Israeli blockade since 2007.
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Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)

Between the Buffer Zone and the Bluest Sea

By: Mina Remy | septembre 4, 2012

Before I arrived at Grassroots International (nearly a year ago), I thought I understood the hardships imposed on Gaza. I knew about the imposed siege, had read and heard of the Turkish flotilla of 2010 and other humanitarian attempts to reach Gaza. I even knew about loss of acres of farmland, inadequate access to potable water, shortage of medicines, shortage of building materials, and periodic bombardment by the Israeli Defense Forces.
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Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)

Khaldeya’s Garden

By: Mina Remy | mai 16, 2012

Khaldeya Soboh first learned about the urban garden project in Gaza when she saw her neighbor’s garden filled with vegetables. Although she had a bit of land near her home for years, it sat idle. That’s when she began peppering them with questions, “Who runs the project? Where can I enroll? Is there training?”
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Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)

Small-Scale Fishing Industry Washed Ashore in Gaza

By: Salena Tramel | avril 23, 2012

The tiny motorboat’s engine coughs a couple of miles offshore and whirls to a stop. Gazing out over the aquamarine Mediterranean waters, I feel high from the fumes of cheap Egyptian diesel and the smell of sea salt. “Let’s get in,” says Mahfouz Kabariti, a fisherman, stripping down to swim trunks and diving overboard. A Palestinian friend who is a medical student also came along for the ride. We eye each other cautiously. She winks, and we both jump in the water, fully dressed, our long pants weighing us down. It’s a perfect Friday afternoon. From out here, the ubiquitous bullet holes in buildings are invisible and Gaza City looks like a coastal resort town.
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Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)

Voices from International Women’s Day

By: Salena Tramel | mars 15, 2012

Waiting for my visa interview on a dusty embroidered couch at the Afghan Embassy in Cairo, minutes turned into hours. I had recently decided to spend International Women’s Day in the countryside outside of Kabul, to learn from women there as they work towards a better Afghanistan. My mind wandered as I prepared for the journey, and I found myself reflecting on the meaning of a day set aside to celebrate women. Memories drifted through the past few years where I had spent International Women’s Day with Grassroots International’s partners in Palestine and Haiti. Years apart and worlds away, the experiences were bound by song.

Gaza Strip, 2009
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Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)

Recovery in Gaza — Garden by Garden

By: Mina Remy | décembre 27, 2011

Three years ago today, on December 27, 2008, the Israeli Defense Force launched Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. The offensive left a trail of death and destruction in its wake, including hundreds dead, thousands displaced, and nearly the entire 1.5 million-person population traumatized and hungry. In the years since the bombing stopped and tanks rolled through agricultural fields, recovery has been slow.
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Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)

Latest Attacks Bring Fire and Fear to Gaza

By: Carol Schachet | août 19, 2011

Soon after shameful attacks killed six in southern Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu said that militants would pay “a very heavy price.” And then his warplanes proceeded to pound civilian areas with missiles. So far nine Palestinians—including two children—have been killed, and dozens injured. Retaliatory strikes have not always been limited to sought-after militants but have also affected the more vulnerable and punishable civilian population. Ahmed Sourani, from the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees, a Grassroots International partner near Gaza City, said that they were getting shelled from both sides, even though it is not yet clear who was responsible for the attacks in Israel. “We are very scared about this escalation,” he admitted.
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Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)

Gaza Diaries: Leaving a Legacy of Seeds

By: Carol Schachet | mai 19, 2011

RAFAH, Gaza—I’m sitting around a table at the Rural Women’s Development Society (RWDS) near the Gaza Strip’s southernmost border with a group of women discussing grassroots agricultural initiatives and drinking sugary sage tea. For a second, the sound of a war plane suffocates our words. One of the center’s leaders looks out the window and rolls her big brown eyes. “As I was saying,” she repeats, “we are dealing with real threats here.”
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Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)

Gaza Diaries: Prison Visits

By: Carol Schachet | mai 15, 2011

GAZA CITY— The turnstile locks behind me and I’m standing in a small metal room. I flashback to the first time I crossed Erez checkpoint last year and remember the claustrophobic feeling of walking into a trap, three small metal doors blending into the steel. This time, I know the drill, and place bets on which one of these gateways to Gaza will randomly open. One finally does, revealing a seemingly endless open-air tunnel that snakes through the expanse of the buffer zone. I have been waiting for this moment, for the long walk alone to the other side. I crank up Gran Vitaly’s “Looming Hurricane” on my iPod and weave through the cage, separated from heavily armed soldiers by razed agricultural land. Time stands still for a while, and then before I know it, I’m back in the Strip.
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Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)

Celebrating Palestinian Land Day

By: Sara Mersha | mars 30, 2011

At the rate the Separation Wall is being built, soon Palestinian Land Day (March 30) will need only a few hours. The Wall and the Israeli mandated buffer zones jut into the Palestinian territories by as much as 300 feet, gobbling up fertile agricultural land and precious water reserves, and make cool profits for companies like Elbit Systems Ltd. contracted to build the massive structure.
Because we believe in the human rights to land, water and food as fundamental rights, and because Elbit reaps massive profits from land grabs like the building of the Separation Wall, Grassroots International is asking TIAA-CREF to fully divest from Elbit Systems, Ltd.
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