2023-10-22 07:28:30
“If the country doesn’t come to its senses, there will be a humanitarian disaster,” states Adi Engert, one of the organizers of the aid package operation for the unrecognized villages in the Negev during the war.
“On Saturday evening we realized that we had to deal with this story,” says Engert, a social worker by profession, who is running for the Kfar Saba city council on behalf of Meretz. “All activity has stopped. Meretz’s headquarters has become a headquarters for collecting donations for the residents of the Otef and the soldiers. On Tuesday I spoke with my friend Esti Shochat Rosenfeld, with whom I worked in transporting the Bedouins to the polling stations during the last election campaigns, and I asked her if she knew what their situation was now. She spoke to the contact who said the situation is very bad, the people are starving.”
Adi Engert. “We don’t have a state or organizational infrastructure, it relies on the human spirit” (photo: private album)
Engert knows the reality of life in the unfamiliar villages. “There are about 300,000 people there. 200,000 of them are below the poverty line. There is no protection there, they are like ducks on a range. This is a population that works in agriculture for an hourly wage. They don’t go out to work now. They are afraid of harassment.”
Engert and Rosenfeld chose to focus on food aid. Engert, one of the founders of the bilingual school in Kfar Saba, spread a message on social networks, and people joined the initiative. “Donations of dry food have arrived from citizens of Israel, Jews and Arabs, from the triangle, from Haifa, from Jerusalem, from Kfar Saba and recently also from Lod and Ramla.” Activists of the ‘Together’ movement also joined.
“We have no state or organizational infrastructure,” stresses Engert. “It is based on the goodwill of people and familiarity between the people. One of the friends opened Paybox and became the treasurer. It relies on the human spirit.”
*Partners in fate – partners in HML*
After a slight postponement, an operation to distribute food baskets to about 400 needy and war-affected Jewish and Bedouin families – from Merhat and the unrecognized villages and surrounding settlements – is underway today. At this time dozens of people are volunteering at the Berhat community center packing the packages.
In the HML’s announcement it was stated that he “works on the purity of sharing”. pic.twitter.com/vcLsdGkUVN
— The Regional Council for the Unknown Villages in the Negev (@rcuvnegev) October 19, 2023
At the headquarters in Kfar Saba, the collected food is packed in family packages and transported to the Negev in private cars. The packages arrive at the emergency HML in Hora, which distributes the packages among the unrecognized villages. “There are many volunteers there, the desert stars, Ajik, the council for unrecognized villages and people like me without an organization. They know the area and know what the needs are and who is in need.”
Engert knows very well that her factory will not last long. “Now everyone opens their wallet and puts their own name. Everyone is mobilized now, the generosity is endless. People gave everything they had and sometimes what they didn’t have. But people ran out of money.” Engert remembers the woman who brought a kilogram of rice. “She said: ‘I won’t be hungry from this.’ She gave it from her mouth. This is what people do, and it’s more than I imagined.”
When Engert is asked about the country, she replies with a bitter smile: “There is no country. We have been holding on for two weeks. How much longer will we hold on? A month? Homeless, foreign workers and asylum seekers – all are now starving. There will be a humanitarian disaster. There is no country. We knew it once, and it was lost Her footsteps. I will continue as long as I can.”
Engert demands a comprehensive and immediate solution. “The Ministry of Welfare should distribute food without eligibility checks and without an identity card. The state should pour money on everyone. It should be poured on a marginal population like on evacuees from the Gaza Strip. No one has made an orderly decision to evacuate them. They are refugees in their own country, internal refugees. The state needs to understand There are tens of thousands of displaced people here, and to act accordingly.”
As a social worker, Engert witnessed the power of the state and the weakness of the public service. “The state can enter in a single attack like I could. A state is people. Although the public system has been starved, there is a personal decision of a person.” Engert cites as an example the action of the social workers’ organization on the first day of the war. “Did someone prevent the deputy director of the Ministry of Social Affairs from organizing this?” she wonders. “They didn’t do it. It is impossible to remove the personal responsibility of the middle and senior ranks in the civil service. Personal deficiencies were also discovered. It’s a social default, not just a security one. Just as the security establishment has to give justice, so at the social level.”
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