A reader asked: Given Israel’s blockade on Gaza, what happens with donations to aid agencies?

When reader Joe Nolan wrote in to say he’d been hearing ads raising funds for Gaza, he said he was a bit suspicious. 

After all, the Israeli government is blocking most of the aid from entering Gaza, they pointed out. So what are donations used for? 

Spokespeople for charities Action Aid Ireland, Concern and Trócaire say that while the situation is extremely challenging, they are still working and managing to deliver some aid to people in desperate need.

They do that work with partner humanitarian organisations on the ground, they said. 

There are barriers to getting aid trucks into Gaza. So Action Aid funds local aid workers to buy food inside Gaza – either from overpriced commercial suppliers, or from surviving local farmers.

“Our local partners buy from the commercial trucks,” says Riham Jafari, communication and advocacy coordinator with Action Aid Palestine. “They are very high prices, but we don’t have any choice. We have to respond to the people.”

Trócaire says its sister organisation Caritas Jerusalem also transfers funds directly to families to buy what they need inside Gaza. 

Donations also pay salaries for Palestinian nurses and doctors who continue to work in Gaza, they said.

Concern, meanwhile, fund a local organisation that desalinates and delivers drinking water to refugee camps in Gaza, said its spokesperson.

Rafael Yari Cabanillas Gonzalez, logistics team leader with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), says that there are fewer aid workers on the ground and less aid getting in than in other conflict zones where he has worked.

“It's very difficult,” he says. “There are not as many organisations as there should be.”

That said, where he is now is so overcrowded that there wouldn’t be room for more aid workers. Medicine, tents, food, water and construction materials are all in short supply, he says. 

Commercial suppliers

Most days, Israel allows a small number of trucks into Gaza, says Jafari of Action Aid Palestine. 

Mostly, though, they’re not aid trucks. “Most of what is allowed in are commercial trucks,” she says.

Some aid trucks are coming in slowly, says Cabanillas Gonzalez. MSF got some medicine in recently, he says. 

He can’t be sure if there are more commercial trucks than aid trucks. “There are a couple of commercial trucks getting in,” he says, “but not as much as we would like.”

MSF is trying to build a new facility in Khan Yunis, he says. “It's very complicated to get things in, everything from construction materials, tents, cement, even wood,” Cabanillas Gonzalez says. 

Food shortages mean prices have shot up. Most people in Gaza can’t afford to buy from these commercial suppliers so aid agencies buy the food and distribute it.

Soaring prices mean donations don’t stretch as far as before, she says, and it is a very expensive way of delivering aid. 

Sometimes they get lucky and can support local growers, said Jafari, by phone from Bethlehem in Palestine’s West Bank, on Tuesday. 

“Last week, we responded with fresh vegetables that we were able to buy from local farmers,” she said. But those are of limited supply, she says. 

A spokesperson for Trócaire says the charity works through its sister organisation Caritas Jerusalem, which is on the ground in Gaza, and can pass on cash. 

“They provide a bank transfer to Palestinian families in Gaza,” he says. “That allows them to go into the commercial market and purchase whatever is the most urgent need for them, be it shelter, food or medicine.”

Commercial markets are operating, he says, but supplies are low. And “the cost is extortionate”. 

The price of flour has gone up 2,000 percent, says the Trócaire spokesperson. 

Caritas Jerusalem recently suspended work in Gaza city because it became too dangerous, but it continues to work in other parts of Gaza, he says.

Cabanillas Gonzalez, of MSF, says he is worried about winter coming soon, he says. People don’t have decent shelter.  

Drinking water

Action Aid Ireland, Concern and Trócaire all flagged the urgent need for drinking water, particularly in Gaza City. Without that, many more people will soon die of thirst, they said.

There are desalination machines in Gaza to make seawater safe to drink, says Jafari of Action Aid. But they need fuel and certain chemicals, which aren’t getting into Gaza in sufficient quantities.

The solution is for Israel to open the border crossings and allow 1,000 trucks a day to enter Gaza with aid, she says. 

Catríona Pender, a humanitarian advisor with Concern, says it funds a European charity, with many Palestinian employees, working in Gaza for years.

“At the start we were doing therapeutic food and getting stuff over the border,” says Pender. 

Therapeutic food is a dietary supplement for people with specific nutritional needs, including malnutrition. 

But “that became very, very difficult”, she says, “so what we are focusing on at the moment, with a partner, is water”.

Pender says she understands that many people are confused as to whether donating to aid charities will help people in Gaza. 

“Funds donated go directly to Gaza,” she says. “We are still getting water to people and providing people with latrines.”

Their partner can’t get desalinated water to everyone who needs it, she says, but they bring it to certain refugee camps inside Gaza. “What we are trying to do is to have consistency in the communities where we are operational.”

Aid agencies prioritise vulnerable people in the camps, including the disabled, she says. “We are managing to reach them, it is very, very difficult but it’s not impossible.”

Challenges on the ground

Cabanillas Gonzalez, of MSF says that he has worked in conflict zones before – in Yemen, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and elsewhere.

There are often difficulties in getting supplies, but not as severe, he says, as in Gaza. 

“We are used to handling challenges in terms of physical access, and we handle displacements of population from one place to another,” he says. “But people have somewhere to go.”

Right now in Gaza, there is nowhere to go, he says. People fled from Gaza City to get to this area, which is a designated safe area, he says. 

But there is no space left for people to put up tents, he says. “It's very hard to find a place to stay; some people have gone back to Gaza City.” 

There is nowhere that feels safe in Gaza, he says. 

Caritas Jerusalem employs medical professionals, mostly Palestinian doctors, nurses and medical technicians still working in Gaza, says the Trócaire spokesperson. 

The aid organisations cooperate under a United Nations-coordinated system to deliver aid, he says. The UN has stockpiled some medical supplies inside Gaza, but are fast running out, he says. 

Despite the shortages of supplies, doctors continue to work in the hospitals that have not been destroyed, he says.  

“There is still work happening despite the horrendous circumstances,” says the Trócaire spokesperson. “The staff in our partner organisations are going hungry as well.”

“This could all change tomorrow, and the UN and our partners could be allowed to do their work,” he says. “Israel is enforcing horrific conditions on Palestinians as a form of collective punishment.”

Jafari says that after aid trucks get through the border, items are offloaded to be picked up by Palestinian trucks inside Gaza, she says.  

But there are limits to how many Palestinian trucks are allowed to do those pick-ups, she says. 

“Even if the trucks get in, then actually getting the aid and distributing it around the Gaza Strip is incredibly difficult,” says the Trócaire spokesperson. 

“The roads are all destroyed, there is very little fuel, and the Israeli military will say you can’t go here and you can’t go there,” he said. 

Starving people will also sometimes loot trucks. “Gaza lost everything and needs everything,” says Jafari. 

She feels hopeless, she says. 

“We are depressed all the time, we are losing hope every day because of the complicity of the world and the inaction of the world,” says Jafari. 

“It's clear that they [the Israeli authorities] want to obstruct humanitarian aid,” she says. 

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency alone has 6,000 trucks that cannot get in at the moment, she says. “It's systematic violations of the humanitarian work in Gaza.”