Aid for Children and Families in Gaza

With your support, we were able to send an emergency grant to our longtime partner the Union of Health Work Committees which runs a hospital and several clinics in Gaza. They requested funds to purchase medicine and medical supplies to help them to treat the huge influx of injuries due to Israeli attacks on people during the Great Return March. 

We are also preparing to distribute food parcels to nearly 1,000 families in Gaza this month. This is the third year we have distributed food parcels during Ramadan and each year we increase the number of families we target because the unemployment and poverty levels in Gaza continue to increase leading to higher rates of malnutrition among children.

Below is a short excerpt from an email MECA staff wrote on April 7, 2018 with information about the situation in Gaza from our staff on the ground:

“People in Gaza are fed up and we are trying to send a message to the world: Enough is enough. Twelve years of siege is killing us in a slow way.  We need to go back to our villages.”
—Amal Abu Moailqe, MECA Project Coordinator, Gaza

This is the message Amal hears again and again as she travels around Gaza visiting schools, community centers and homes.

Now, tens of thousands of Palestinians are protesting their displacement and the Israeli occupation and siege along Gaza's borders. The Israeli army is attacking protesters with tear gas and live bullets. Israeli snipers, tanks, and drones are targeting the protesters. So far, more than 30 people have been killed; more than 2,500 wounded, including women, children and youth. Gaza’s hospitals are completely overwhelmed. 

In Gaza, two million people live on just 139 square miles—the biggest open-air prison on earth. More than forty percent are under fifteen years old. These child prisoners are living without childhood. 

Most children in Gaza only know life under siege—the severe deprivation of basic necessities, the inability of sick people to leave for the treatment they need, the unemployment that causes depression in children and adults alike, days and nights without electricity. They also know life under Israeli bombs from major attacks in 2009, 2012 and 2014. 

Hundreds of children have been killed. Thousands have life-long injuries. Every child in Gaza has been traumatized. They suffer from insomnia, panic attacks, and depression. Many children wet their beds, even older children. Some have become violent, taking their anger out on friends or family.

Gaza Project Assistant Wafaa El-Derawi explains how poverty—mostly created by Israeli policies—has led to food insecurity, with 40% of children in Gaza suffering from anemia. 

Your support together with the donations from Zam Zam Water and Paliroots is providing warm clothes to more than 2500 children in Gaza this winter. The clothes were distributed with the help of our network of community organizations located throughout Gaza and our many local volunteers. 

Additionally, hundreds of homes that have damaged roofs or broken windows were covered with plastic sheeting to prevent leaks during the winter rain. 

Wafaa El-Derawi, one of MECA's staff members in Gaza, explains "Thousands of poor families are apprehensive of the cold weather due to the harsh living conditions in Gaza. Ten years of Israeli blockade has created high levels of poverty. And the severe electricity crisis combined with the limited quantities of fuel for heating leaves many homes without any source of heat. Children without suitable winter clothing are extremely vulnerable."

We appreciate your support which has helped us to purchase supplies to help keep children and families warm and dry.