Gaza Emergency Appeal Update
March 2024

Since the start of the conflict on 7th October, Amos Trust has been able to send over £350,000 of emergency support to Palestine — over £310,000 of this has gone to our partners and other organisations that we work closely with in Gaza and £40,000 has been sent to the West Bank. 

The challenges in getting supplies into Gaza are immense and in the first days of the war, when aid deliveries were denied access, this was even harder. Our commitment remains to get as much money and aid to local communities in Gaza as quickly as possible to local communities in Gaza as they desperately need it. 

Al Ahli ‘Baptist’ Hospital

A Place of Peace:
Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City.
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We knew that Israel’s response to the 7th October Hamas attacks would be of a scale that we had not witnessed before — just how extreme it would be has been beyond our imagination. As soon as the bombardment started, we sent the first of two emergency payments to the Al Ahli ‘Baptist’ Hospital in Gaza City.  

The hospital has now been hit four times and is extensively damaged, but astonishingly, it continues to run. It suffered one of the worst strikes of the war on 17th October which led to nearly 500 deaths. The latest we have heard is that they have run out of fuel, have very few medicines and have a pressing need for medical staff. They rely on badly damaged solar panels to operate in the daytime and on the lights on their phones at night. The 200 patients and remaining medics have been surviving on a meal of rice a day, but with only 15% of emergency supplies getting through to the north of Gaza, reports suggest that they have now run out of food as well. 

We would love to be able to send emergency aid to them, but since the ground invasion started, it has been impossible for us to get any additional assistance through. 

As the hospital is cut off, most of the staff are trying to find shelter in the south of Gaza. Those members of staff taken by the IDF from the hospital shortly before Christmas were finally released into the south of Gaza and told they could not go back to the hospital. Many have been displaced two or three times, including our good friend Mohammed Naqa, the head of the social work department, who now lives in a tent on Khan Younis beach with his whole family. 

Last week, Suhaila Tarazi, the hospital Director, asked if we could support them by helping with the hospital’s wage bill. We were delighted to be able to send money through for them, as this will go to all those sheltering in the south of Gaza.

Sheltering in Gaza City

Bombardment:
The Orthodox Church in Gaza.
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As soon as the bombardment started, many people fled to the hospitals and UN schools as they were seen as safer places (it is why so many people died in the missile strike on Al Ahli on 17th October). Several thousand fled to the Catholic and Orthodox churches in Gaza. Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church, built in about 1150, was seen as one of the most important and safest places in Gaza. This did not stop it from being bombed on 20th October. In association with Friends of the Holy Land (FHL), we sent two sets of funds to them so that they could buy food and other essential supplies. 

The second of these payments happened when the ceasefire was extended by 24 hours. FHL messaged us saying there was a 12-hour window to get money through so they could buy food. As you had been so remarkably generous, we could respond immediately. However, after the ceasefire ended, when the fighting around the hospital became intense and the final supplies had run out in Gaza City’s warehouses, they asked us not to send any more funds through until the situation had improved. 

Hundreds are still there, including staff from Al Ahli and our partner NECC. The churches have received a couple of deliveries of supplies since the ceasefire, but they are now surviving on minimal levels of food with no fuel. This week, the UN reported that there is an imminent danger of starvation for those sheltering in Gaza City, estimated to be up to 700,000 people, unless aid is immediately let in.

Gaza Sunbirds 

A Remarkable Story:
Gaza Sunbirds para-cycling team training in Gaza..
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We helped to set up the Gaza Sunbirds para-cycling team and continue to work closely with co-founder Karim Ahli in the ongoing development of this remarkable project. At the start of the war, we arranged for a final payment of the athletes’ stipends until the situation resolved itself. However, the next day, they got in touch to tell us how they had spent the money — on distributing food parcels among their communities and that if we could send more money through, they would continue to do more.

This was the start of a remarkable story. Not only have Karim and the team received remarkable levels of support, they have also distributed an incredible amount of emergency aid. These amazing athletes, each with a severe disability, have delivered over 61 tonnes of food aid and other essential supplies to young families (valued at over £100,000). Much of this has been done by bike or donkey-drawn cart. 

The Sunbirds continue to deliver supplies, and last week, we were able to send a pallet to the Rafah Crossing loaded with tents and medical supplies for them to distribute.  

Getting the money to the Sunbirds has not been easy and remains an ongoing challenge, but Karim’s and the team’s resourcefulness has been incredible. As a result of their amazing work and their commitment to chronicling their life in Gaza, they have become widely known as one of the very few stories of hope from Gaza. If you want to lift your spirits, visit their Instagram account to see some inspirational stories.

We Are Not Numbers 

Young writers:
Ahmed Alnaouq from We Are Not Numbers in Gaza.
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Our partners, the youth journalism organisation We Are Not Numbers (WANN), was founded by Amos trustee Ahmed Alnaoq after his brother and best friends were killed by an Israeli bomb in the 2014 war on Gaza. The young writers and reporters who trained with WANN are called ‘Wanners’. Since the start of this war, several of these young people have been killed or injured. 23 members of Ahmed’s own family were killed in one night. WANN co-founder, writer and poet Reffat Alareer was also killed, and many others have lost much-loved family members. 

WANN wanted to pay their young writers rather than send them aid, and we were delighted to respond to their request to support them in paying 60 young (and some not quite so young) journalists to write stories from Gaza. 

The Welfare Association, Christian Aid and the Culture and Free Thought Association

Working in partnership:
Food aid being delivered to Gaza by the Welfare Association.
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Once aid started to slowly trickle into Gaza, we took the opportunity to discuss with colleagues from Christian Aid and the poverty relief charity the Welfare Association whether we could work with them to get aid into local communities that desperately needed it. We had previously visited one of Christian Aid’s partners, the Culture and Freethought Association, which runs a fantastic cultural centre, and we were delighted to work with Christian Aid to send vital funds to their community initiatives.

We have made two large payments to the Welfare Association to provide food parcels to internally displaced people who have had to flee their homes and are now living in tents and temporary structures in the south of Gaza. The first of these paid for fresh food parcels for 600 homeless families sheltering in the Deir al-Balah and Al-Zawaida areas. This was facilitated by the Social Development Forum. 

West Bank

A New Hope:
A new hall being built at Wi'am Reconciliation Centre in Bethlehem.
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On the West Bank, we have sent funds to Holy Land Trust and Alrowwad Cultural and Arts Society for their community food programmes. We have also been delighted to send support through to Wi’am Conflict Resolution Centre to build their new community hall. This building is right next to the Separation Wall and the principal military checkpoint in Bethlehem. It is a statement of defiance and hope when there have been so many killings, injuries and arrests throughout the West Bank. It has also been a vital source of employment. 

What next?

We are amazed by the support we are still receiving and people’s incredible generosity. We are committed to sending more funds to Gaza and the West Bank in the coming weeks. It remains desperately difficult to get resources into Gaza, especially into the north of the Gaza Strip — yet we are determined to do all we can to enable this to happen. 

Alongside this, we must see an immediate ceasefire, an immediate end to the fighting, the release of all prisoners and a just, long-term resolution, as these are the only real hope to end the genocide that we see unfolding in Gaza in real-time.