Palestinian hospitality

Palestinian hospitality is renowned across the world. Here, grandmother Imm Mahmoud, who has four daughters and one son, welcomes visitors into her home with traditional sweet tea.

Photo: Alan Gignoux

New toilet

With funding from the Humanitarian Aid Department of the European Commission, Oxfam has been working with the local municipality in order to improve sanitation facilities for Imm Mahmoud and her family. A new latrine was recently installed. She says: "Everything is a problem here. Things are not easy but this latrine helps me and the family."

Photo: Alan Gignoux

Well rehabilitation

Water is in short supply in the rural West Bank but Oxfam has worked with Fathi Khdirat, from the Jordan Valley Village Council, to rehabilitate old wells and Roman cisterns in the region in order to ensure that Imm Mahmoud and others have enough clean water for their daily needs.

Imm Mahmoud collects water from this cistern four times per day. She estimates that she carries 16 gallons of water each day across a distance of more than a kilometre.

Photo: Alan Gignoux

Water tanks

Here Fathi Khdirat shows one of many standard 1000 litre water tanks used to collect, or 'harvest' rainfall when it comes. The rainy season lasts just a few months during the winter.

Photo: Alan Gignoux

Difficult to get around

Getting around the West Bank is not easy. Access, even for international humanitarian workers, is not free because of checkpoints and other restrictions, and many roads across the West Bank are poorly surfaced with dangerous potholes.

Photo: Alan Gignoux