The story of Palestine’s grinding poverty never really registered on the Western media’s radar. By the spring of 2003, the UN was reporting that food shortages were so acute it had run out of supplies for destitute refugee families and that malnutrition was rife. The small village of Izzbi Tabib where this man is from, was in a desperation situation, cut off from its fields by the new wall and the services of its neighbouring town Azzoun. Its plight was being replicated across the West Bank and Gaza. (March 2003)