Israeli Citizens Send Aid to Gaza

March 25, 2009

It began with a compassionate plea from two young Israeli women: Lee Ziv, 28, a peace activist, and Hadas Balas, 25, a student from Sderot, the rocket-barraged town on the Gaza border. After a radio interview, they were overwhelmed with the response. “Within two minutes of the interview, I had 40 voice messages. The response has been overwhelming. Schools have called asking how they can help. A father called who had three sons serving in the IDF in Gaza. A woman called who had a mortar fall on her house.”

Their first delivery included seven truck loads. It was confirmed that the aid was not confiscated by Hamas militants but delivered safely to those in need where up to 400,000 Gazans were without water and over 4,000 homes were damaged, leaving thousands homeless.

How is it possible that the “fired-upon” could help those from the firing side? A resident of Kibbutz Kafar Aza close to the Gaza border explained, “Look, even when your windows shake at night from the rocket attacks, you can see across the border that Gaza is dark for a month,” he explains. “You feel the humanitarian situation. Most people here say Hamas brought this upon them, but we’re still talking about children who we will have to live with in the future. The people who are closest to this should do the most. It’s a basic humanitarian act.”

“It’s not that we don’t understand our need to protect ourselves,” says Ziv, “but we know something is terrible there and a lot of people have died…There is no connection to politics. We don’t represent a side; we just see an immediate need for blankets for people who have nothing to cover them at night and milk for infants who have nothing to eat.”

By Charleeda Sprinkle, Assistant Editor