Palestine crisis: A message from a bleeding Gaza

As Israel continues its relentless attacks on Palestinian communities, ActionAid Palestine’s senior humanitarian programme officer, Samah Kassab, shares a powerful and heart-breaking message from Gaza.

Greetings from a bleeding Gaza. We appreciate the solidarity of people around the world and their messages to stop the aggression and the injustice which Israel is levelling against Palestinian communities. A violence which violates international humanitarian and human rights laws.

But despite the solidarity of people around the world, governments have not yet influenced Israel to stop the airstrikes on Gaza.

Our women and children are being targeted, just because we want to stay in our homeland. How could innocent children and women threaten the security of Israel?

The death toll from the attacks is rising. But we are not numbers, and every person who was killed has a story to be shared, every one of these martyrs had a dream they hoped would come true.

Every mother who has lost a child wished that she could have kept them in her womb and did not bring them out into this world to be targeted by missiles.

Every child who lost their mother in this aggression, will no longer get the hug that makes them feel safe.

Every day and every night I stand helpless in front of my children. I cannot stop their bodies from trembling due to the terror caused by the continuous bombing.

I think all the time, how I would live if I lost my children and how they would live if I died?

But despite all of this and because we have the right to, we have a hope of freedom, we will rise again.

According to UN figures, the crisis has displaced more than 75,000 Palestinians, around 40 per cent of them children, and destroyed thousands of homes, government offices, schools and the only health centre providing Covid-19 testing and vaccines in Gaza.

ActionAid’s humanitarian response in Gaza will focus on the most vulnerable groups, including families whose homes have been completely or partially destroyed by Israeli airstrikes.

Working with local partner organisations, ActionAid is looking to reach close to 2,000 families in urgent need of support, including food, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), essential items, such as hygiene kits, clothes, blankets, mattresses and nappies, psychosocial support for traumatised children and their families, and women’s protection services.

• Donate to our response to the Gaza crisis: https://www.actionaid.org.uk/gaza-crisis-2021