Why Palestine?

Set up in 1992 to help the people of Bosnia, EDA is now using some of its resources and knowledge to extend a hand of friendship to people suffering in another and even more protracted war of annexation, ethnic opression and terror, in Israel and Palestine.

• May 2004 Aid Delivery
• What Next
• How to Help

Textbooks for West Bank Schools

A lot of books have already been collected: but now money is needed, for transport, for team expenses, and above all, to supplement aid sent from Scotland with local purchases (which doubles the help to the community). A fund-raising campaign is to start shortly.

May 2004 Aid Delivery

A start was made in May 2004: goods collected in Scotland were sent by shipping container to Ramallah, via the port of Ashdod in Israel. An EDA team timed their arrival in Ramallah to co-incide (almost) with the arrival of the container. The team also brought with them some £7,000 in donated funds, to augment the aid sent in the container with local purchases.

Most of the aid was distributed in Ramallah and its nearby villages which have suffered grievously from curfews, closure of access roads to work and fields, and the near-impossibility of getting to hospitals, markets and shops. This was to be done in cooperation with the Union of Palestinian Medical Committees and the Association of Womens Social Care Groups in Ramallah.

EDA also helped people in need on the Israeli side of the divide, and was guided and advised in this by the Church of St. Andrew in Jerusalem.

EDA'S convoy team arrived in Ramallah, 20 km North of Jerusalem, on Saturday May 8th 2004. Their 40' goods container sent from Newhaven on April 9th was finally released by Israeli customs on May 11th. It arrived in Ramallah in the evening and with the willing and freely given help of volunteers from the Palestine United Health Work committees, young lads living nearby and the helpful owner of a fork-lift truck, the container was unloaded in an amazing 1 1/2 hours. The convoy team then found themselves very busy sorting loads for schools, clinics, and women's self-help committees in each of the 10 villages they were able to help. The aid included a large number of sterile wound and burn dressings, sutures, single-use safety hypodermics, and other medical products for use by village clinics. For schools, there were pens and jotters, a good number of classroom-size sets of attractive English readers, math's texts and general books. For the children in the villages there were clothes and toys; and for mothers, toiletries and baby clothes. Most of the goods were donated by people and companies in Edinburgh and Glasgow, but some came from further afield - including some 10,000 pairs of socks from a Yorkshire woollen mill.

The team was very well received everywhere amongst the Palestinians - David Reek's kilt attracted special attention, friendly smiles and whispers of "Scottish" from passersby (especially the ladies). Their relations with Israel have so far also been good - the Israeli embassy in London intervened to make sure that the party were not unduly delayed coming into the country (as did the British Embassy in Tel Aviv), and to make sure also that the container was not irrationally or maliciously further delayed.

Again, at checkpoints the teams were usually waved through after a cursory passport check, sometimes with a "have a nice day". But given that at one of the checkpoints (Kalandia on the Jerusalem-Ramallah road) they saw two young men with their hands tied behind their backs being sporadically cuffed and kicked by the soldiers, the "Have a nice day" sentiment was not always reciprocated.

The EDA team visited the Wall - the great 30' high linked concrete slab "security" fence which Israel built and continues to expand not on the border of its own territory, but around the very many Jewish settlements in the West Bank and around nearby Palestinian lands and houses. In one village near Jerusalem they saw where a house had been demolished to make way for the Wall. They met a mother of 5 who had lived in the house, and was now staying with her father - and his many other children and grand children - in a house which is also be demolished to make way for the wall. EDA has often met people, in Bosnia and Kosovo, whose houses had been blown up. But this was the first time we met people who know with certainty that their house is going to be blown up. And know that they can do nothing to stop it happening. When the mother and her father were asked where will you go, what will you do, who will help you ?- the response, only God can help us.

Relatively few houses are actually demolished to make way for the wall. But its effect on community, family and livelihood is catastrophic. EDA met family after family whose smallholdings - crofts- were reduced to next to nothing by either outright annexation, or by being cut off from access by the wall. The Clearances must have had much the same impact on the small Scottish farmers of yesteryear, with similar horrors. The difference is, these Israeli-Palestinian clearances are happening now.

Actual deliveries started on Thursday 13th, sorting and selection of goods for different destinations is expected to continue until Friday 14th. Most deliveries were made on Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th, in three self drive vans. Most of the team flew home on Monday 17th, leaving Maggie and Tony to deliver and spend up whatever of the funds remained.