NEW START FOR ANAS QATERJI
Former Aleppo resident Anas Qaterji managed to set up a restaurant in the impoverished strip after fleeing Syria. For his compatriot refugees, however, rising inflation and unemployment make life difficult
Syrian refugee opens restaurant in Gaza based on the original in Aleppo,
NUSEIRAT REFUGEE CAMP, GAZA // When his family’s restaurant in Aleppo was destroyed by bombs, Anas Qaterji had no choice but to flee war-torn Syria. He made his way to Turkey, then Egypt, before slipping into the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip though a tunnel under the border. Since his arrival in 2013, he has tried to recreate life in the formerly prosperous Syrian economic capital by opening a restaurant almost identical to the one he left behind near the citadel of Aleppo.
In Nuseirat Palestinian refugee camp, south of Gaza City, Mr Qaterji, 29, was able to buy a 50-square-metre property for US$50,000 (Dh183,635). From Aleppo, he managed to salvage a 500-year-old wooden panel inscribed with Quranic verses, which now stands in the middle of the small restaurant at the huge Nusseirat camp, where about 160,000 refugees live in overcrowded conditions.
Above traditional coffee pots and antique copper cups, a sign reads: “Restaurant Jar Al Qalaa 2: taking you to Aleppo”.
“Here, everyone speaks about Aleppo. The Palestinians follow the Syrian news closely,” says Mr Qaterji.
It is difficult to say exactly how many Syrians are in Gaza, most of whom entered from Egypt during the short presidency of Mohamed Morsi, who was removed in 2013, via illegal tunnels that Egypt has since largely destroyed.
But according to sources, between 150 and a few hundred of them reside in the small territory held firmly by Hamas and ravaged by three wars since 2008 and endemic unemployment.
None of them have formally declared their entry or are officially registered. Warif Qassem Hamido, head of an association of Syrian families in Gaza, also left everything behind in Aleppo. He arrived in Gaza in 2013, along with 11 Syrian families. He opened his “Syriana” restaurant but very few Syrians have managed to rebound and start businesses.
For all other war refugees, life in the crowded Palestinian territory is “very hard”, says Mr Hamido.
In the small enclave where the unemployment rate is 45 per cent and inflation continues to climb, the Syrians “have no way to pay their rent, to care for themselves or pay their children’s university expenses”, he says.
More than three quarters of Gaza’s population are registered as refugees with the United Nations, and UNRWA, the UN agency in charge of Palestinian refugees, is a vital source of aid. But it exclusively supports Palestinians. For emergencies, Mr Hamido’s group, which has a television programme on the Syrians of Gaza, launches Facebook appeals.
The latest was a call for donations to finance the appendectomy of Issam, a three-year-old boy.
Mr Qaterji, meanwhile, pines for his ageing parents who stayed in Aleppo, but he will not return to them because he has found a wife in Gaza.
At his restaurant, customers enter one after the other to buy shawarma and other Syrian favourites at affordable prices. Among them is Nadia Baraka, for whom a visit is a visual and gastronomic treat as well as a gesture of support.
“I’m showing my solidarity with the people of Aleppo, who are undergoing the same suffering as we have endured during the Israeli offensives,” says Ms Baraka, 20, a student, gazing at the elegant decor of the room, where staff in Ottoman dress serve diners.
That kind of support is not enough for Majed Al Atar, 47, who arrived from Damascus through a tunnel in the summer of 2012.
He left the Syrian conflict only to live through two Israeli offensives on Gaza. Unable to find permanent work, he cannot pay for his children’s school or the eye operation that his wife needs.
Today, without the help of authorities and forced to increasingly rely on charitable associations, “the authorities in charge of the refugees must get us out of Gaza and relocate us elsewhere, because the situation is getting worse day by day”, says Mr Al Atar.