Nablus! Finally, we were able to go to Nablus together. The main reason was to document the distribution of milk to poor people. But we also checked out some water projects ANERA is involved in.

 

Unfortunately we could not visit the old city of Nablus (for security reasons) but we did go to the huge Balata Refugee Camp (see photo). Here, 25,000 refugees live more or less on top on each other. Most of them are very poor; unemployment rates are rocketing, as are the health problems. It is all very sad.

 

Nablus is one of the cities that are closed off from its surroundings with checkpoints and security zones. There are a lot of people in Nablus that have not been outside the city for seven years. Life is tough here.

The Israeli’s, who set up the checkpoints slowly choking the city, points to the fact that a lot of suicide bombers and other militants come from Nablus. Which is true – we saw a lot of martyr posters (posters displayed all over town with photos of young (and now very dead) men, wielding guns.