Help Mothers in Gaza Survive the Genocide

Product Description

United States

Over the past 18 months, I’ve built friendships with Palestinian families navigating daily devastation. Against this backdrop of a genocide the mothers and fathers I’ve come to know have demonstrated a new paradigm of love.

Americans are often inclined to believe people are always looking for a handout. But mostly these Palestinian mothers want confirmation: You see us, right? Do you see what is happening to us?

But as Israel’s genocidal campaign rages on, their circumstances have become apocalyptic and they have no choice but to ask for donations. Israel has closed the boarders to humanitarian aid since March 2nd, which means the only available food must be purchased at astronomical costs.

If only we don’t look away, radical maternal love awakens a sense of universal responsibility – that motherhood can be a powerful force for change.

The injustice is unbearable. Please make a donation today. Even $10 makes a difference.

Rozan, husband Ashraf, daughters Tala, Hala, Wafa & Lynn

Bayan, husband Hany, children Ameer & Leen

Noor, husband Baha, 9 month old Yazan

Israa, husband Youssef, 2 boys Karam & Ahmed

Mahomad, Reham and 1 year old Adam

Aya, her husband Hani and children 2 year old Rema and 4 year old Mohammed

Seneen and her 5 children; daughters Suwar, Mayar, Watin and Aline, and son Aboud

Wissam, husband Khalil and their 3 boys; Fouad, Adam, and Mustafa

Friends –

As always, I am so grateful for your continued generosity during this horrific time. Just shy of the two year mark of this genocide, hand to God, you are one of the reasons the families in this campaign are still alive.

But I’ll get right to it: I am trying to raise as much $$ as I can over the next 72 hours. I need to make transfers to 5 of these families ASAP. Donations have been particularly slow for them and malnutrition, sickness, evacuations, etc. lurk behind each corner.

I wish I had any good news to share but there is no relief, only relentless terror. This week alone Noor’s father was martyred and is still buried under the rubble, despite Bahaa’s best efforts to retrieve his body as the drones shot at him; Mahamoud told me Reham is losing so much weight she’s down to about 85 pounds, and almost everyone in this campaign is evacuating south once again as the North and Gaza City are being decimated by the IDF. While not uncommon before, these last few weeks, everyone I talk to wishes for death.

However, every time I make a transfer on behalf of your donations, no matter the amount, it gives these families a glimmer of hope. Each and every mom in this campaign is profusely grateful for you all. Trust me, they are praying for you and truly that is about as good a luck charm as you can get 🙂

If you are unable to give, could you do me a favor and share this campaign with someone who may be able to?

In addition, please don’t stop talking about Palestine. Public perception is shifting rapidly, and general consensus builds pressure on decision makers and is applied to force policy change.

As for me, I can only hope that if I were in their place—forced to beg on social media for donations to crowdfund my family’s survival—someone would do the same.

Thank you all for caring enough to be here.

Attached are glimpses into some of our conversations recently.

Hello all,

First and foremost, on behalf of Roz, Reham, Bayan, Israa, Noor, Aya, Seneen, Wissam and Nour, thank you for your generosity, no matter the amount.

I’ll keep this short because there is not a lot left to say at this point.

I want to make another transfer to these families by Wednesday – can you spare $20?

Everyone in Gaza is starving to death. After banning UNRWA and other international humanitarian aid organizations, Israel-U.S. started the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which operates as a death trap, killing the starving civilians who are forced to go there in search of any food.

According to the UN human rights office, since May 30th nearly 900 desperate and hungry Gazans have been killed in recent weeks trying to fetch food at the GHF. Armed merchinaries fire live amunation and tear gas while quadcopter drones shoot from the sky, and essentially, the crowd of people become a stampede, trampling and suffocating those that fall. It’s the real life Hunger Games. It’s real life Squid Games.

There are still vegetables in Gaza, but they are ungodly expensive.

Forgive me for how often I ask but unfortunately, the ‘Palestine exception’ extends to humanitarian aid and people’s willingness to donate.

Thank you for everything you’ve done thus far. Please don’t stop talking about Palestine.

First and foremost, I have to start out by saying thank you to everyone who has donated. Big and small, these donations are a literal lifeline, especially now as Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid enters its third month.

Maybe even more than the money, each donation made is reassurance that someone out there finally sees their suffering and the subjugation they’ve been enduring for decades.

It can be hard to understand how this kind of direct-to-family mutual aid works and why it is so vital now, so I’d like to take this opportunity to briefly explain.

Everyone in Gaza is facing an increased threat of starvation. On March 2nd, Israel closed the borders and laid siege to the entire Strip. Food, water, medicine or other life-saving supplies have been sitting just outside of Gaza waiting to provide relief for 80 days.

This means that those in Gaza – most of whom have had everything they own destroyed and no income for 19 months – cannot access free food from community kitchens and distribution centers operated by aid organizations.

While the borders are closed to life-saving aid, loopholes and caveats exist for “businessmen” in neighboring countries, who are allowed to smuggle in products. Due to the prolific scarcity, these merchants can jack up their prices as much as they want as desperation grows, and in a lot of cases they charge 10x normal prices. For instance, right now, 25 kilogram bags of flour are now selling for upwards of $650.

So families who have campaigns and fundraising support outside of Palestine are still able to buy goods and necessities in the scarce market. Additionally, there are a few Palestinians who are farming what they can, growing produce like tomatoes and eggplant and take to the marketplace to sell.

After being charged astronomical commission rates for transfering the money they raised crowdfunding, it makes it to them. Aside from being one of the only effective ways to donate currently, I’ve always been a fan of mutual aid like this because it gives the families some autonomy – to buy what they need rather than be given specific things from aid organizations.

The consequences of this current blockade have been catastrophic and have compounded an already horrific, man-made famine. All the while, Israel continues to bomb the trapped, starving refugee population.

Please keep them in your prayers and donate when you can.

Free Palestine

Sasha Miller