Faiz Kafarna 

"I am 100% glad for the opportunity to work and I hope to keep working for JumpStart International on similar projects in the future."

At midnight on August 9th of this year, Faiz Kafarna, 53, received a call from his neighbor. He was informed that the Israeli Defense Force, suspecting a militia member lived in his neighbor’s house, was going to fire a rocket at the house next to Kafarna. Fifteen minutes later, the Israeli rocket leveled Kafarna’s home. It was a mistake, a miscalculation that sent the rocket into Kafarna’s house instead of his neighbor’s.

Kafarna was never active in any militia or any political activities in his entire life. In a split second, the 27 people that lived in Kafarna’s house were homeless. The house was built with great effort and sacrifice over a couple of generations of his family.

This is what is left from Kafarna's home.
Faiz Kafarna, part of his family and JSINTL staff.

This house was home to Kafarna’s 17 children, ages 7 to 33. In the fifteen minutes given to evacuate the house, they were only able to save some clothes. There was not enough time to run upstairs to retrieve anything from the second story.

His eldest son ran a store in the front of the house. It was the family’s only stable income, as Kafarna had not been allowed to work in Israel since 1991 where he had worked most of his life. Most of store merchandise was provided to the store on consignment. Now, because all of the merchandise was damaged during the rocket attack, he owes money to the suppliers but has no income to repay it.

Part of Kafarna's Family and JSINTL Staff.

After the rocket attack, Kafarna and his family live in the backyard under olive trees together with their few chickens and ducks. They cook, eat and sleep outside. They worry what will happen to them when winter rains come. The day I visited them, they had moved inside the bombed out ground floor of the house. There had been a sudden and unusual summer rain. To protect their meager belongings, they hid in the house but the damaged house did not prevent the driving rain from coming inside.

Kafarna has had to borrow money from his family and friends to live. In order to survive and to pay the debt, he has sold half of his small parcel of land to his neighbors. He is thankful to his neighbours for allowing his family to share electricity and water with him. This way he is able to use a refrigerator in the backyard and has light at night.  

A closer look at the destroyed home

When asked about his current situation, Kafarna replied "We are like dead bodies now. What kind of life is this? We used to live like normal people. We didn’t have much but we were able to live like people." As he spoke, he was emotional, and showed his sadness and frustration he carries on a daily basis.  

A broken toy belonging to one of the children

For the last two months, Kafarna has been with JumpStart International as a foreman making $14 dollars a day. He has been supervising JumpStart projects that clear debris from the streets and vacant lots in Beit Lahiya and in his hometown of Beit Hanoun. Before JumpStart, Kafarna was working sporadically as a caller at a mosque where he made approximately $50 a month. 

In an area where approximately 46% of the people are officially unemployed, Kafarna is grateful for the work. With his job at JumpStart, he can slowly begin paying the debt back to his family and creditors and start to think about rebuilding his destroyed home. Since the insurance does not cover such cases, he has only himself to rely on.

As we wrapped up our conversation, Kafarna shared, "I am 100% glad for the opportunity to work and I hope to keep working for JumpStart International on similar projects in the future."

~Ray Knott, Director of Program Design and Management
October 16, 2006