JENIN, West Bank — Along with his family, Abu Ahmed, who hails from Jenin governorate in the northern West Bank, has been stuffing cigarettes for three years. He fills on average 3,200 cigarette tubes — locally known as “al-Arabi" — with 4 kilograms (roughly 9 pounds) of tobacco for $20 per day. Abu Ahmed, who runs an olive grove at his farm, relies on this job to provide for his family.

While using a tube-filling machine, Abu Ahmed told Al-Monitor that he gets chopped up tobacco and empty filters from a dealer who sells them for $5 per kilogram (2.2 pounds). He said the lack of job opportunities and the high cost of living have prompted him to do this work to provide for his family’s daily needs.

Mohammed al-Masri, an Arabic teacher in Jenin, smokes al-Arabi cigarettes, which are sold in plastic bags rather than carton boxes. They aren’t rolled like ordinary cigarettes because the tobacco is not processed in a factory. “In light of the harsh economic conditions, I can only afford to buy this kind of cigarette. I can barely afford to pay $1.50 for a pack of al-Arabi cigarettes per day, so I can't pay $5.50 or $6 for an imported pack of cigarettes,” Masri told Al-Monitor.

Thousands of Palestinians in Jenin work in the industry of cultivating, harvesting and stuffing al-Arabi tobacco, and its consumption has increased among the Palestinians because of the high price of imported cigarettes and those locally manufactured.