This is an urgent call for support to help us fill trucks leaving for Rafah filled with food, water, and other essentials to fight against the conditions of forced famine in Gaza.
Although Mutual Aid Disaster Relief has been a primarily U.S. based disaster relief network, due to the failure of the international community, including international aid agencies to get adequate aid to the Palestinian people of Gaza, and international institutions’ complicity with Israeli genocidal acts, and building on the strong relationships and connections our volunteers have nurtured with Palestinians, we feel now is the time to borrow the hearts of nomadic birds who don’t recognize borders and throw our hearts over the fence and trust that the rest will follow.
With starvation being used as a weapon of war against besieged Palestinians inside of Gaza, MADR volunteers are coordinating with autonomous, grassroots organizers on the ground in Palestine and Egypt to get aid convoys through the Rafah crossing. Donations here are earmarked for Gaza and will be used for purchases of bulk supplies.
Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip have endured over six months of armed aggression and bombardment by the IDF and have been pushed to a state of famine. Over one million Palestinians are now in acute malnutrition and are currently being starved to death as a tactical instrument of warfare: a war crime outlined in International Humanitarian Law. Upwards of 90% of Palestinians in Gaza are now internally displaced and traditional aid distribution sites, hospitals, and places of worship have been obliterated by Israeli bombs and utilized as traps by the IDF. Silence and inaction in the face of genocide is complicity in genocide. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act. The targeted assassinations of World Central Kitchen volunteers has just increased our resolve to do whatever is within our power to break the siege and deliver life-saving aid to the people of Gaza.
About us: Mutual Aid Disaster Relief is a grassroots network whose mission is to provide disaster relief based on the principles of solidarity, mutual aid, and autonomous direct action. By working with, listening to, and supporting impacted communities, especially their most vulnerable members, to lead their own recovery, we build long-term, sustainable and resilient communities.
