The Palestinian “heroes” who support humanitarian aid in Gaza

Fidaa al Araj lives hanging from what she calls “a thread of hope.” With her six children, between three and 15 years old, her husband and her in-laws, she has already fled four times since the war in Gaza began: 10 people now crammed into a single room in southern Rafah, a roof over which she says she has luck. That city has almost sixfolded its population, from around 250,000 inhabitants, with displaced people trying to find a safe place that no longer exists in the Strip. Palestinians who previously had a life and now survive under plastic in the street in the war in which Israel has already killed more than 33,000 people, according to the Ministry of Health of the territory governed by Hamas. This 39-year-old psychologist struggles every day to find food and water for her family. She also to not give in to the fear that, because of her work, she will become a target, as probably happened to at least some of the 196 humanitarians killed so far in the war. Juliette Touma, spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), defines them as “heroes.”

Al Araj is the Food Security, Cash and Protection coordinator for the NGO Oxfam, whose 26 employees in Gaza are now, without exception, Palestinians, the woman says by phone. Two months ago, her and her colleagues managed to set up an office in Rafah, where they continue to manage the NGO's work, in collaboration with Oxfam's international offices. “We have never stopped working,” explains the aid worker, who estimates that her organization's humanitarian assistance since November has benefited at least 200,000 people, almost 10% of the 2.2 million Gazans. They have distributed food, materials to make shelters, blankets, mattresses and hygiene items. They have also installed one of the specialties of their organization: latrines and showers, in the camps for people displaced by the war.

Fidaa al Araj, in Gaza, with destroyed buildings in the background, in an image provided by Oxfam.

Fidaa al Araj's is not an unusual profile. As in most places that depend on humanitarian aid, in Gaza, the bulk of aid workers are local. Another example is offered by Doctors Without Borders. Sources from this NGO point out that, in their case, the proportion is nine Gazans for every expatriate, while Julie Mehigan, director of programs in the occupied Palestinian territories at Christian Aid, assures by email that “99%-100%” of people who work with them in the Strip are Palestinians.

This reality breaks with the myth of the

white savior

, which alludes to the cliché that identifies aid workers with Caucasian men from rich countries. The media and diplomatic impact of events such as the death in an Israeli attack of six Western humanitarians from the NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) last Monday contributes to reinforcing that stereotype. Only those six humanitarians, of the total of 196 who have died in the war, were expatriates.

The Palestinian aid workers whose deaths went almost unnoticed also perished “while fulfilling their duty to provide humanitarian aid,” the UNRWA spokesperson recalls from Jordan. 177 of the almost 200 victims worked in that United Nations agency. “Our colleagues maintain that noble commitment to their people when they themselves are victims of war: they have been displaced, they have lost their homes and their loved ones, but they continue their work because they feel it is their duty,” says Juliette Touma.

UNRWA is the main humanitarian actor in Gaza and has the most infrastructure: buildings, vehicles, warehouses and, above all, personnel. With its 13,000 employees, it exceeds the sum of the workers of all the other organizations present in the enclave. Most are teachers in the agency's 183 schools, where almost 300,000 children studied. Those schools and other UNRWA facilities now shelter some 1.7 million displaced people and classes have stopped. Hence, only 4,000 workers from the organization, which also has 22 health centers in the Strip, remain active. They are doctors, nurses, midwives, drivers or those who distribute the flour that since November has benefited 1.8 million people. Only between 25 and 30 of his aid workers in Gaza are foreigners.

The enormous weight of this institution gives uniqueness to humanitarian aid in Gaza. UNRWA is a unique case. No other United Nations agency is specifically dedicated to a specific refugee population. Martin Griffiths, UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, defines it as “the backbone” of assistance in the territory.

“There is no other humanitarian actor in Gaza that can provide food, water and medicine on the scale that UNRWA does,” Matthew Miller, spokesman for the US State Department, Israel's staunchest ally, acknowledged in February. He professes a declared aversion to the agency and does not hide his intention to put an end to it. Despite the growing weight of World Central Kitchen's now-suspended work, this agency and the other 22 United Nations agencies in Gaza—Unicef, the World Food Program and the World Health Organization, among them—have provided 80% of the humanitarian assistance provided in these six months of war in the Strip, according to data from the Israeli Administration itself.

A Palestinian Red Crescent doctor cries at a funeral in Deir al Balah, central Gaza, on January 22, 2024.AFP

Also around 70 international NGOs help the Gazan population, according to a calculation by this newspaper based on public information and the United Nations. The UN organizes humanitarian assistance with them through what they call

clusters

or sectors. There are six: education, food security, health and nutrition, protection, shelter and water, sanitation and hygiene.

Fidaa Al Araj's NGO, Oxfam, co-leads the water, sanitation and hygiene sector together with Unicef. An example of their coordination work would be to prevent two organizations from installing latrines in the same displaced persons camp and leaving others without them. None of these sectors, the aid worker explains from Rafah, has stopped functioning due to the war.

In addition to Oxfam, other important international NGOs are present in Gaza: Doctors Without Borders, International Rescue Committee, Doctors of the World, Norwegian Refugee Council, Action Against Hunger, Care International, Save the Children, Anera and Christian Aid, among others, at Many local NGOs join in, collaborating with them and with the UN.

For example, HelpAge International assists its beneficiaries – the vulnerable elderly – thanks to its Palestinian partner Juzoor. Its local staff identifies them and provides them with help, explains its founder, Dr. Umaiyeh Khammash, from Ramallah (West Bank). The latest report on the situation in Gaza from Unicef ​​states that, “the majority of the responses [humanitarian actions] of the

[education]

cluster had been provided by local partners.”

A legion of Gazan volunteers also supports humanitarian work in Gaza. The NGO Anera alone has 400, according to its president, Sean Carroll. Some of the 11 Palestinian Red Crescent deaths since October 7 were volunteers. Others, employees, like Yusuf Zeino and Ahmed al Madhun, who died trying to rescue the six-year-old girl Hind. As happened on Monday with WCK, her ambulance was attacked with a missile. She was also identified and the Israeli authorities had been notified of her journey. No one has apologized for these deaths nor has Israel faced public pressure to clarify them.

“We appreciate all the humanitarian workers who died while trying to help us in Gaza,” said a tweet by Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabat this Saturday. And he continued: “But our lives matter as much as yours (…) Palestinian lives deserve to be mourned as much as any other life.”

Aside from journalism, almost every day we cook meals to feed the displaced in schools in North Gaza. With our very limited supplies, we cook and distribute meals to hundreds every day. We appreciate all the aid workers who were killed while trying to help us in Gaza, but our… pic.twitter.com/h0vPNVysxu

— حسام شبات (@HossamShabat) April 6, 2024

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