Lebanon: 42% of Families Cannot Afford Ramadan Iftar

 FILE PHOTO: Volunteers prepare food for distribution to people in need, amid concerns over the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in the port city of Sidon, southern Lebanon May 27, 2020. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Volunteers prepare food for distribution to people in need, amid concerns over the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in the port city of Sidon, southern Lebanon May 27, 2020. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho/File Photo
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Lebanon: 42% of Families Cannot Afford Ramadan Iftar

 FILE PHOTO: Volunteers prepare food for distribution to people in need, amid concerns over the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in the port city of Sidon, southern Lebanon May 27, 2020. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Volunteers prepare food for distribution to people in need, amid concerns over the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in the port city of Sidon, southern Lebanon May 27, 2020. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho/File Photo

A mere comparison of prices of some basic food commodities in Lebanon shows that Iftar banquets this Ramadan will miss items that were taken for granted last year.

The price of a kilo of rice, which did not exceed LBP 3,000 (two dollars based on the official exchange rate of LBP 1,515 per dollar) now exceeds LBP 8,000, while a kilo of lentils - which is called food for the poor - reached LBP 15,000. The price of 5 liters of cooking oil was around LBP 18,000 to increase by 7 times, reaching LBP 90,000, as merchants applied the black market exchange rate of LBP 13,000 per dollar.

An index published on Monday by the American University Crisis Observatory showed that the cost of an Iftar consisting of essential ingredients (a date seed, lentil soup, fattoush salad, and half a cup of milk) and a basic meal per person would cost LBP 12,050 (USD 8) or LBP 60,250 (USD 40) daily for a family of five persons.

This means that the cost of Iftar is more than two and a half times (2.6) of the minimum wage per month, bearing in mind that the calculated price does not include water, juices, sweets, gas, electricity and cleaning materials.

The Observatory noted that 42.5 percent of families in Lebanon, whose income does not exceed LBP 1,2 million per month (now equivalent to about USD 100) would find it difficult to afford the minimum Ramadan meal.

In comparison with previous years, the basic Iftar cost index, according to the Observatory, showed an increase from about LBP 450,000 per month in 2018 to LBP 467,000 in 2019 and then to about LBP 600,000 in 2020, to jump upward this year.

“We will rely on inexpensive and satiating foods, such as pasta, for example,” says a lady waiting her turn at the door of a supermarket.

She told Asharq Al-Awsat that the budget that she allocated every year for Ramadan was the same, but it was now barely enough for rice, sugar, oil and some cereals.

The Ministry of Economy had intensified its inspection visits to supermarkets ahead of Ramadan, recording a large number of violations. A source in the ministry told Asharq Al-Awsat that the ministry was monitoring prices regularly, but it was difficult to check 22,000 points of sale with only 77 inspectors.

A survey conducted by Information International on a sample of 100 families showed that 45 percent of respondents did not prepare Easter sweets last week, while another 35 percent made the traditional “maamoul” at a lower cost, replacing pistachios and walnuts with dates and sugar.



'No Life Without Water': Settler Attacks Threaten West Bank Communities

The Ein Samiyah spring is a vital water source for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank grappling with chronic shortages. Zain JAAFAR / AFP
The Ein Samiyah spring is a vital water source for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank grappling with chronic shortages. Zain JAAFAR / AFP
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'No Life Without Water': Settler Attacks Threaten West Bank Communities

The Ein Samiyah spring is a vital water source for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank grappling with chronic shortages. Zain JAAFAR / AFP
The Ein Samiyah spring is a vital water source for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank grappling with chronic shortages. Zain JAAFAR / AFP

From his monitoring station on a remote hill in the occupied West Bank, water operator Subhil Olayan keeps watch over a lifeline for Palestinians, the Ein Samiyah spring.

So when Israeli settlers recently attacked the system of wells, pumps and pipelines he oversees, he knew the stakes, AFP reported.

"There is no life without water, of course", he said, following the attack which temporarily cut off the water supply to nearby villages.

The spring, which feeds the pumping station, is the main or backup water source for some 110,000 people, according to the Palestinian company that manages it -- making it one of the most vital in the West Bank, where water is in chronic short supply.

The attack is one of several recent incidents in which settlers have been accused of damaging, diverting or seizing control of Palestinian water sources.

"The settlers came and the first thing they did was break the pipeline. And when the pipeline is broken, we automatically have to stop pumping" water to nearby villages, some of which exclusively rely on the Ein Samiyah spring.

"The water just goes into the dirt, into the ground," Olayan told AFP, adding that workers immediately fixed the damage to resume water supply.

Just two days after the latest attack, Israeli settlers -- some of them armed -- splashed in pools just below the spring, while Olayan monitored water pressure and cameras from a distance.

His software showed normal pressure in the pipes pulling water from the wells and the large pipe carrying water up the hill to his village of Kafr Malik.

But he said maintenance teams dared not venture down to the pumping station out of fear for their safety.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, deadly settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank have become commonplace.

Last week, settlers beat a 20-year-old dual US citizen to death in the nearby village of Sinjil, prompting US ambassador Mike Huckabee to urge Israel to "aggressively investigate" the killing.

- Annexation -

Issa Qassis, chairman on the board of the Jerusalem Water Undertaking, which manages the Ein Samiyah spring, said he viewed the attacks as a tool for Israeli land grabs and annexation.

"When you restrict water supply in certain areas, people simply move where water is available", he told AFP at a press conference.

"So in a plan to move people to other lands, water is the best and fastest way", he said.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, several Israeli politicians and officials have become increasingly vocal in support of annexing the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.

Most prominent among them is Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler, who said in November that 2025 would be the year Israel applies its sovereignty over the Palestinian territory.

Qassis accused Israel's government of supporting settler attacks such as the one on Ein Samiyah.

The Israeli army told AFP that soldiers were not aware of the incident in which pipes were damaged, "and therefore were unable to prevent it".

The damage to Ein Samiyah's water facilities was not an isolated incident.

In recent months, settlers in the nearby Jordan Valley took control of the Al-Auja spring by diverting its water from upstream, said Farhan Ghawanmeh, a representative of the Ras Ein Al Auja community.

He said two other springs in the area had also recently been taken over.

- Water rights -

In Dura al-Qaraa, another West Bank village that uses the Ein Samiyah spring as a back-up water source, residents are also concerned about increasingly long droughts and the way Israel regulates their water rights.

"For years now, no one has been planting because the water levels have decreased," said Rafeaa Qasim, a member of the village council, citing lower rainfall causing the land to be "basically abandoned".

Qasim said that though water shortages in the village have existed for 30 years, residents' hands are tied in the face of this challenge.

"We have no options; digging a well is not allowed", despite the presence of local water springs, he said, pointing to a well project that the UN and World Bank rejected due to Israeli law prohibiting drilling in the area.

The lands chosen for drilling sit in the West Bank's Area C, which covers more than 60 percent of the territory and is under full Israeli control.

Israeli NGO B'Tselem reported in 2023 that the legal system led to sharp disparities in water access within the West Bank between Palestinians and Israelis.

Whereas nearly all residents of Israel and Israeli settlements have running water every day, only 36 percent of West Bank Palestinians do, the report said.

In Dura al-Qaraa, Qasim fears for the future.

"Each year, the water decreases and the crisis grows -- it's not getting better, it's getting worse."