The pregnant ewe and her stablemates find a gap in the fenced-off paddock and slip their minders, bolting through the dusty West Bank village.

It does not take long for her pursuers to track them down. Hemmed in themselves by Israeli checkpoints to the west, east and south, there is one thing Palestinians have learnt only too well: security cordons, pursuit and restraint.

Six years ago, the refugees of Ein Shibli could work in Israel, 25 miles (40km) to the west — where their ancestral homes now lie empty or owned by Israelis — in the sprawling Palestinian city of Nablus, or in the fertile Jordan Valley on their eastern doorstep.

No more. Nablus and its environs — between the Bible’s blessed Mount Gerizim and cursed Mount Ebal — are now locked down by Israeli soldiers intent on halting the flow of suicide bombers from refugee camps. An elaborate system of checkpoints and permits has trapped many adult males inside Ein Shibli for years.

The already grim situation was exacerbated by the victory of Hamas, the militant Islamist faction, in Palestinian elections last January, leading to Israel and the West cutting off funds to the Palestinian Authority.

Until 2003 — at the height of the violence — the International Committee of the Red Cross provided food vouchers to some of the most vulnerable people in the West Bank, supported by cash, delegates and advice from the British Red Cross. But it halted the programme, declaring that it was the duty of Israel, as an occupying power, to care for the Palestinians under its control.

Amid findings by its Household Economy Assessment last month that 60 per cent of households in the West Bank and Gaza were “poor” or “very poor”, the ICRC decided to provide households with the means of supporting themselves rather than relying on handouts.

It sent 78 pregnant sheep, funded by the British Red Cross, to Ein Shibli and other villages, as part of a programme of livelihood support.

“We have different projects but in Ein Shibli they wanted sheep, because that’s what they know,” said Sibel Gürler, a delegate at the ICRC sub-delegation in Nablus. “For the villagers a sheep represents a certain value, it’s like cash on legs.”

Donated in October, the sheep have now given birth and provide dairy produce for their new owners, who can also sell or keep any offspring to bolster their meagre earnings.

“We get yoghurt, milk and cheese. It’s a way of covering some household expenses,” said Nasser Abu Hattab, 35, as he distributed feed in a tiny shed shared by five sheep and a blizzard of aggressive pigeons. “It’s better than the vouchers — they were one-off but this benefits us over a longer period.”

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