Ramallah

January 17, 2009

The Gaza Strip has been enduring brutal violence for over 20 days now. Over 1,000 residents have been killed and over 5,000 residents have been injured; most of them children, women and the elderly. Thousands of homes, organizations and projects have been completely razed.  Tens of thousands of civilians have fled their homes in search of safety and protection from the relentless air and land shelling. The infrastructure in Gaza, such as water and electricity networks, has been incapacitated. Agricultural land has been bulldozed and crops ruined.  These actions have completely devastated the Palestinian economy and left the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in a catastrophic humanitarian state.  Due to the exacerbating crisis in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Businesswomen's Association; Asala, calls on the international community to insist that Israel put an immediate halt to its aggressive attack and to ensure the immediate protection the civilian residents.   

Asala supports over 1,250 Palestinian women entrepreneurs living in poverty in the Gaza Strip who were managing and operating micro income generating projects  that directly improved and enhanced their economic and social lives. These projects are valued at a minimum of $1.5 million.  Asala calls  on the donor community to provide crucial financial support to ASALA to  enable these women to rebuild their income generating projects, support themselves and their families, and live in dignity.

Asala asks its clients to please find a way to contact Asala or their loan officers in order to help us better estimate their losses so that we can determine the  most appropriate path of assistance.

Asala offers its most sincere and heartfelt condolences to our colleague Karima Kafarneh of Beit Hanoun whose family of 7 was directly targeted by Israeli missiles in their home. The entire family was seriously injured, and the family's youngest child, 2 year old We'am, lost her life.  Asala mourns the victims of the ongoing violence and prays for a quick and successful recovery for the injured.