GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Rent is accumulating for the family of Asmaa al-Qassar, a Syrian woman who has not been able to find a job ever since she fled the fighting in Syria to the Gaza Strip in September 2011 with her Palestinian husband and two children. Qassar, who lives in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, fears she will not be able to pay her rent, which is 550 shekels ($145) per month, and the electricity and water bills that add up to about 100 shekels ($26) per month.
Qassar, who has a diploma in math, told Al-Monitor that she has been looking for a teaching job in private schools and preschools ever since she arrived in Gaza, to no avail. She feels that she has reached a dead end and decided to save up as much as she could from the salary of her husband — who found a job as a photo editor at a local agency three months after they arrived in Gaza — which amounts to $400 a month.
