Charities launch Israel & Gaza fundraising appeals
Melanie May | 13 October 2023 | News
Action Against Hunger has just launched an emergency appeal to help people in Gaza, joining charities including Islamic Relief, Oxfam, Human Appeal, and British Red Cross that have already launched appeals in response to the Israel:Hamas war.
Announcing its emergency appeal, Action Against Hunger said:
“We are deeply concerned by the escalating violence in Gaza and Israel, with the situation becoming extremely serious. The number of civilians killed and injured continues to rise. And the violence doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. A catastrophic humanitarian crisis is unfolding before us.”
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Donations will go towards helping protect vulnerable communities in Gaza, with any funds raised over and above the needs of these programmes supporting to its work and used where help is needed most. The charity has been working in Gaza since 2005. Its programmes have been temporarily suspended to protect staff and their families, with teams ready to resume activities as soon as it is safe to do so.
Since the 7 October, more than 1,200 people have been killed in Israel, and over 1,500 in Gaza. The UN estimates that more than 400,000 people have also been internally displaced in Gaza so far, while thousands of Palestinians are currently fleeing Gaza City. This is in response to Israel’s order that 1mn should evacuate, and following its blockade of Gaza Strip, which was announced in response to Hamas attacks on Israel.
ActionAid UK has also launched an emergency fundraising appeal today.
Dr Halima Begum, the charity’s CEO, urged the UK government to work with the Israeli government to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza:
“Gaza remains under effective blockade. It will cause an unimaginable humanitarian disaster to directly 1.1 million people—half the Gaza population—to relocate from the north to the south during an active military conflict to avoid the consequences of a potential ground war.
“Put simply, with the ongoing destruction of infrastructure to support water, power, medical, and food supplies across the Strip, ActionAid UK considers it impossible for such an evacuation to happen without disastrous consequences. As a humanitarian organisation with a particular focus on women and girls, we urge the parties to consider in particular the plight of pregnant women and terrified, vulnerable children at risk of separation from their parents amid the chaos and confusion of this escalating conflict. In the strongest possible terms, we therefore urge the UK government to work with the Israeli government to take all necessary steps to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.”
British Red Cross’s appeal launched 9 October. It says staff and volunteers from Magen David Adom in Israel, the Palestine Red Crescent Society and the International Committee of the Red Cross are treating casualties and providing first aid, ambulances and medical support. Donations will go towards helping people on the ground in both Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which includes the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Oxfam launched its fundraising appeal on Wednesday. It has been working in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel since the 1950s and established a country office in the 1980s. Donation will help its teams respond in Gaza as soon as it’s safe to do so.
On its appeal page, Human Appeal says that so far it has provided ambulances and hospitals with 4,000 litres of fuel and provided 200 nutritious food parcels to feed families. It has been working in Palestine since 1991.
Islamic Relief is working with its local partners and preparing its humanitarian response, which is likely to initially focus on distributing medical supplies and survival items. Its appeal can be found here.
Muslim Aid also has an appeal. Abu Akeem, its Head of International Programmes said:
“We are in discussions with our partners inside Gaza to pre-finance agreed humanitarian interventions, while we urgently call for the immediate opening of humanitarian corridors.
“We are procuring from vendors inside Gaza to stockpile and distribute, and secondly, we are pre-procuring supplies outside Gaza in anticipation of humanitarian corridor opening soon.”
In the UK, following a reported rise in antisemitic attacks since the conflict broke out, the government has awarded Community Security Trust (CST) extra funding of £3mn to “protect schools, synagogues and other Jewish community buildings”. Several Jewish schools based in London have temporarily closed over safety concerns. The Community Security Trust has recorded a 400% increase in the prevalence of antisemitic incidents in the UK since Hamas’ terrorist attacks in Israel.
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About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.