[image: Middle East Childrens Alliance]
Dear Aram,
As Israel escalates its attacks on Gaza City, we wanted to share with you a
message from our colleague Wafaa El-Derawi who is leading MECAs emergency
response in Gaza.
As Wafaa notes, MECA is still standing and doing everything we can with
very limited supplies. We have even opened a new community kitchen to serve
displaced families in Gaza City. But its not enough. In a new joint
statement with over 50 organizations
,
we explain this latest campaign is a death sentence:
*"Intensified Israeli military attacks on Gaza City and forced displacement
orders for the entire city are leaving families with an impossible dilemma:
flee and risk death on the road and in overcrowded displacement areas, or
stay and face relentless bombardment in their shelters. Starvation and
siege await them regardless."*
Please continue taking action
to stop the genocide.
Above: new community kitchen in Gaza City cooks 4,000 hot meals each day
R: Clean water distributions continue across Gaza City
I’m writing to you from Gaza as I do my very best to stay strong, to hold
myself together, and to keep going with our work on the ground. Even as my
heart trembles with fear, fear of losing a colleague, or a friend,
especially those still in Gaza City.
Every single minute, things grow worse.
And right now, as I write these words, over 100 residential apartments and
3 schools sheltering thousands of displaced people in Al-Shati Camp have
just been bombed.
Thousands of people are walking aimlessly through the rubble having lost
everything; their homes, their children, their savings, and even their
dignity.
Here at MECA, we are still standing. *We are still present in the streets,
among the tents, beside our people, doing everything we can to stay and
support them until the very last breath.*
Our team and volunteers in Gaza are risking their lives daily, moving
wherever people are gathered; bringing them clean water, warm meals, and
the dignity of cleanliness.
Every single day we distribute* 600,000 liters of clean drinking water just
in Gaza City*. We *operate hundreds of water wells* so families can wash,
cook, and survive.
Today, we opened *a new community kitchen* to serve nearly 4,000 hot meals
a day in Gaza City, and tomorrow, we’ll open another.
Just yesterday, we completed the distribution of 1575 fresh produce parcels
and this week we’re preparing 1,500 more.
Thirty-two sanitation workers are now in the streets of western Gaza City,
collecting and removing tons of garbage and waste from areas where life
continues to cling to the dust.
Yes, we’re afraid. We’d be lying if we said otherwise.
We barely sleep. We dread the next loss. But we have not given up.
This is the hardest moment of our lives, the greatest test of our strength,
our humanity, and our ability to keep showing up for those who have no one
else left.
As the world turns away, we are trying to be the last light that stays on.
Please, stay with us.
Support us
,
now more than ever, so we can continue.
Because every moment we hold on gives someone else the strength to hold on
too.
*Bay Area Solidarity with Gaza Events*
Visit AROCs website for full listing of Bay Area events
www.araborganizing.org/events
*Emergency Aid for Gaza*
Make a donation
to support MECA & our local partners in Gaza providing emergency aid to
thousands of displaced families
Set up a personalized fundraising page
to help raise funds for MECAs emergency aid work
*MECA’s 2024 Annual Report*
While the last 23 months have been the most challenging in MECA’s 37-year
history, you have stood with MECA’s extraordinary staff, partners, and
volunteers in Gaza who have been providing emergency aid to every day since
October 7, 2023.
Take a little time to look through MECA’s Annual Report for 2024
to see the work you made possible with your generous support of the Middle
East Children’s Alliance.
Even now, while the Israel/US-manufactured famine is killing people every
day we are getting water and some food to people in Gaza.
Donate Now
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Middle East Childrens Alliance
1101 8th Street
Suite 100
Berkeley, CA 94710
United States
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