In the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israel over the weekend, and the Israeli military’s reprisal in Gaza in the days that followed, nonprofits on the ground in the region are struggling to deliver aid to civilians amid a full-blown humanitarian crisis.
In Israel, nonprofits across the country have pivoted toward emergency relief in the aftermath of deadly and indiscriminate assaults by hundreds of Hamas gunmen.
Meanwhile, groups on the ground say that the situation in Gaza, where a humanitarian crisis was already ongoing, has become even more dire. Israel announced that it would impose a complete siege of Gaza, cutting off food, fuel, and electricity to more than 2 million people trapped in the enclave.
The situation has led groups on the ground to mobilize aid amid increasingly desperate conditions. As Israeli bombardments began to pound Gaza this weekend, the group Medical Aid for Palestinians, known as MAP, released nearly $600,000 in stockpiled emergency medical supplies to local hospitals overwhelmed by a massive influx of victims.
Getting food, water, and medical supplies to Gaza has always been difficult, relief workers say. Over the past few days, it’s become impossible.
“Gaza’s health-care system is at a crisis point under normal circumstance,” says Harriet Scott, head of philanthropy at MAP, which doesn’t know when it will be able to distribute the $1 million it has raised since the outbreak of fighting. “You can only imagine what it’s like when an escalation happens.”
Five days since the start of brutal fighting between Israel and the militant group Hamas, more than 1,200 Israelis and at least 1,055 Palestinians have been killed in the worst outburst of violence in half a century. Relief groups in the region are scrambling to meet the mounting needs of those most affected — and to prepare for what comes next.
‘Every Household Has Experienced Loss’
On Saturday morning, Israelis woke up to a major incursion by Hamas that targeted towns near the border with the Palestinian territory of Gaza, while rockets rained down on several cities, some as far north as Tel Aviv.
In Israel, where the surprise assault began early on Saturday, more than 2,600 people have been wounded and around 150 people have been taken hostage by Hamas.
At a music festival near the Gaza border, dozens of Hamas militants killed at least 260 Israelis in what is believed to be the worst civilian massacre in Israeli history.
For many emergency responders in Israel, “this is unlike anything they have ever experienced,” says Cathy Reed, CEO of American Friends of Magen David Adom, which provides financial support to Israel’s emergency services system.
The group has been helping to procure ambulances for the hardest-hit communities and supplies for processing an influx of blood donations for the injured. The Israeli government has also evacuated thousands of residents from more than a dozen towns near Gaza.
“Every household has experienced loss,” says Ariel Zwang, CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which operates dozens of social service projects in Israel that have pivoted to emergency relief since the war began.
The group is now working to distribute cards loaded with money for food or other necessities to Israelis in need, resettle displaced elderly or disabled people into new nursing homes, and provide teachers with resources on how to care for children traumatized by the war.
“Any day now, kids are going to go back to school, and there are going to be a lot of classrooms where some kids aren’t there” or have lost a family member to the war, says Zwang. “If you’re a teacher, nothing has prepared you for that first day of school.”
No Humanitarian Corridor to Gaza
In response to the attack, the Israeli military has heavily bombarded Gaza, a densely populated territory that’s home to 1.7 million Palestinian refugees. A debilitating 16-year blockade by Israel and Egypt has left over 80 percent of Gazans reliant on humanitarian aid to survive. More than 80 percent of Gazans live in poverty, and 95 percent lack access to clean water under normal circumstances.
“It’s impossible to get anything there,” says Zeiad Abbas Shamrouch, executive director of the U.S.-based Middle East Children’s Alliance, on what he calls “a huge challenge for every relief organization working right now.”
With Gaza’s borders even more sealed off than normal — and a humanitarian corridor still nowhere in sight — relief workers have been distributing food packets and hygiene kits from a dwindling supply of local resources, says Shamrouch.
The past several days have seen some of Israel’s most severe airstrikes ever in Gaza, destroying more than 22,600 residential units and displacing nearly 200,000 people, according to the Palestinian Foreign Ministry.
When Shamrouch’s staff call him from Gaza in between distributing emergency relief, he says, they make dark jokes from whichever corner of their homes they deem “most safe” from Israeli airstrikes.
“You can feel how much they are going through,” says Shamrouch, who himself grew up in the Dheisheh refugee camp in the West Bank. “It’s a very, very difficult situation.”
The “complete siege” ordered by Israel to cut off supplies of food, electricity, and fuel to Gaza has only worsened the outlook for these groups.
While the Egyptian Red Crescent — part of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies— has managed to deliver some medical supplies through a border crossing with Gaza, recent Israeli airstrikes have forced that entry point to close. The World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders have also been unable to bring medical supplies into Gaza, forcing the groups to rely on limited local supplies.
Mounting Challenges
As Israel continues to retaliate for Hamas’s deadly incursion, officials have begun urging Gazans to flee the territory entirely — a rare feat under normal circumstances but one that’s impossible under current conditions.
Instead, dozens of schools are now being used by Gazans as temporary shelters, six of which have been damaged by Israeli bombs — as have several medical facilities and at least two hospitals.
Shortly before the war broke out, the nonprofit Anera delivered 12,000 bags of IV solutions into Gaza’s largest hospital, which experiences major medical shortages even during normal times.
With borders closed, “a chronic emergency has become an acute emergency,” says Sean Carroll, president of Anera, which provided nearly $150 million in supplies for refugees in the region last year.
The group has not been able to deliver any medication to Gaza since the war began, leaving hospitals vulnerable to shortages and ailing Palestinians at risk.
“In a situation like this, we need to wait for a ceasefire before people can provide much assistance” at all, says Carroll. “It’s very dangerous to move around right now.”
In a statement, Save the Children, which works in Gaza, called for an immediate ceasefire and noted that it had released $1 million from its Children’s Emergency Fund to help civilians cope with the escalation. At least 260 children have been killed in Gaza, and an unknown number of Israeli children have been killed or held hostage. For now, ongoing violence in Gaza, where nearly half of the population is under 18, has limited the group’s ability to respond.
“The situation is evolving fast and the violence continues,” Jennifer Roberti, chief marketing officer of Save the Children, said in a statement. “As soon as it is safe to do so, our teams are ready to support impacted children.”
