Paul Calvert spoke with Director Nashat Filmon

Nashat Filmon

The Palestinian Bible Society is a national office of the United Bible Societies and was established in 1993. They are committed to making the Word of God available to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Paul Calvert spent some time with the Director Nashat Filmon talking about their current humanitarian work in Gaza and the challenges the people face.

Paul: When was the work established in Gaza?

Nashat: The work in Gaza started in the late 90's. When we were interested in expanding our work reaching out to new areas, Gaza was one of the first thoughts we had. We started building relationships and connecting with people and by the year 1998 we had officially registered our operation as the Palestinian Bible Society in the Gaza Strip. The decree for establishing the organisation was given to us by the late President Yasser Arafat.

Paul: Is Gaza an easy place to work in?

Nashat: It used to be much easier to work in Gaza than it is these days. We used to have open access to Gaza, meaning we used to be able to go to Gaza more often; the borders were not as strict as they are now. Also things were much calmer in those days and the Intifada (uprising) was over. It was the building and constructing time where people were building and renovating and doing businesses, so the potential was very high and people were investing a lot in Gaza. Lots of buildings were built during that time. It was much better and the atmosphere was positive because there was a peace treaty or a semi peace treaty between Israel and Gaza and the West Bank as well.

Gaza and Jericho were the first two places where the Palestinian Authority came to, so things were better. Nowadays it's much harder. It's not easy to have access to Gaza as you have to have a permit first from Israel and then from Hamas and when you go there your operation is very limited in what you can do.

Paul: What sort of work are you doing in the Gaza Strip?

Nashat: We have lots of humanitarian work going on. We help 100 families on a monthly basis with food packages. We've been doing that for the past year and a half. Before that we used to help families, but not this number of families. We also provide small Micro Enterprise such as nets for the fishermen. We also give goats and sheep for the farmers and the ones who can take care of it. We also provide water filters, because the water is polluted in Gaza. Lots of people suffer from kidney issues, so we have a special focus on kidney problems and we provide them with water filters so that they can drink clean water.

We continue with our efforts and relationships with the different churches in Gaza and just the other day we delivered 500 portions of Christian literature to the churches there. We also support their youth work and the youth activities. We have special focus on the psychological health of the people in Gaza. We do post traumatic stress disorder courses and programmes for the people there and for the leaders and the school teachers.

Gaza Centre

Paul: Is the poverty worse in Gaza than the West Bank?

Nashat: Much worse in the Gaza Strip. The unemployment rate is very high. It gets up to 40-50% while in the West Bank it is much less than that. Also lots of refugees are living inside Gaza and they are totally dependant on the United Nations relief programme and they are also dependant on the schooling of the children and in the food and their daily needs. There are not so many job opportunities because Gaza is surrounded and it is a big prison without so many exits. Exits are available the way to Rafah via Egypt and to Israel via Erez and most of the time these are closed and only a few people are allowed to come out of Gaza. The situation there is devastating and very unpleasant.

Paul: Gaza is the most densely populated area in the world. How do the people feel about living in Gaza?

Nashat: There are about 1.6 million people living in Gaza. Most of them are Muslims, with around 2000-3000 Christians. Last time I visited Gaza the taxi driver was sharing with me his heart and he said to me, 'Did you just come from Israel?' and I said, 'Yes I just crossed the border'. He said, 'Oh, how much I miss being there, the situation here is very hard, we do have a little bit of jobs, driving a taxi, but still the atmosphere is depressing'. He started describing how he lost the relationship with his relatives in the West Bank because he cannot go and with his friends in the other areas. Over all, the feeling is not positive. I used to visit Gaza even before and usually post wars you would see lots of destruction and you would know that the situation is very bad, but last time I visited Gaza, people managed to re-build, so you don't see lots of destruction in the roads or on the buildings, but you feel that the people inside are devastated and depressed. They were hoping for much better situation; they were hoping for openness and for ability to move and freedom and it's not the case at the moment.

Paul: With all these humanitarian works that you are doing in Gaza, you're really showing Christ to the people within the community.