I'm raising money for disabled children in Gaza and am working with a local Palestinian NGO: Al Bureij Association for the Rehabilitation of the Handicapped. This is a licensed NGO that I have been supporting for many years. You can see their website at this link:https://www.facebook.com/BARHNGO

The director of the NGO and my friend, Samir Aloul was tragically killed by an Israeli airstrike whilst searching for food & water for his family on October 17th 2023. In memory of his legacy I am now supporting his partner Ahed AlKhatib who is currently taking shelter in a UN school in Al Bureij Refugee Camp North Gaza. I am collecting donations now so that once the war is over, funds can be immediately sent to help Gaza's most vulnerable people with their vital needs: food, water, clothes and medical equipment. Some of these people have lost absolutely everything.

Gaza has become a graveyard for children, with parents writing their family name on their children’s limbs so that aid workers will know to bury them together.For Palestinians trying to escape the fighting, living with a disability can be its own effective death sentence. People who are deaf or blind are less likely to know about evacuation orders and cannot hear or see the strikes. Others with intellectual disabilities may be unable to communicate their whereabouts to relatives or rescue workers, while people with physical disabilities who rely on wheelchairs and other assistive devices are unable to navigate rubble, let alone walk miles south.

More than two-thirds of Gaza’s 2.2 million people have been internally displaced since the war started, with many of them now staying in overcrowded temporary shelters that are running out of food, water, drugs and sanitation capacity as aid trickles in. Morethan 15%of those internally displaced are disabled, according to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The physical and mental health needs for those that remain alive will continue long after the bombing stops in Gaza. The violence has created a huge cohort of new patients who will be facing disability and multiple rounds of surgery over the coming months and even for the rest of their life. The psychological impact of the bombing will also be long-lasting. Children make up almost one in three of the estimated civilian deaths in Gaza since October 7th. An incalculable number of more children have endured family loss, displacement and trauma, leaving many in acute need of socio-psychological help.

Even before the recent escalation, Save the Children found that 80% of children in Gaza reported living with depression, grief and fear. The elderly and people with disabilities are trapped in the places they live, physically unable to escape danger because of the barriers in their way and powerlessness to access the medicines or treatment they need to survive.

Shelters lack medical beds and supplies, causing ulcers and other illnesses that can’t be treated in unsterilized conditions. They have no access to sources of life—food, water, communication, internet, phones.

People are homeless; some separated from their families, support systems and mobility devices. Those with chronic illnesses, who need medical care, cannot receive it because hospitals are overflowing with critically injured patients, while others don’t have the funds to buy supplies such as catheters at pharmacies.

The vulnerabilities facing Palestinian children living with disabilities are often overlapping, leaving many children at greater risk. This leaves them among the most invisible and vulnerable children in their society.

YOUR CONTRIBUTION WILL MAKE AN IMPACT.

Whether you donate $/Euros 5 or $/Euros 500. Every little bit helps. Gaza's disabled children are in urgent need of support and supplies.

Please consider donating to this worthy cause for disabled children in Gaza and please share with your friends I am collecting donations and will pay for any admin costs involved. Therefore 100% of your donations will be going straight to some of Gaza's most vulnerable children.

You can donate to me via Paypal and I will transfer the funds. paypal.me/@ClareHolohanGaza

I'll be sending all who donated an update and pics of how your donation was used.

Thank You and Shukran

Urgent appeal for disabled children in Gaza

Clare Holohan

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