Desperately Wondering How? Here's 4 Ways to Financially Help Gaza
They're being slowly, painfully starved. Here's how you reach Palestine
You’ve seen enough ads about Gaza fundraisers. You wonder how many of them are actually legit. Online, you glimpse the suffering on the ground, and you sometimes wonder. How are they still surviving, with the evil occupation purposefully allowing in only a trickle of aid trucks — far, far less than the desperate needs? Are there banks still functioning in Gaza? Is it possible to get money and resources into the hands of the people on the ground? Can you possibly help?
The face of this aggression has morphed over time, and so have the forms of on-the-ground aid. Let’s run through how these methods of aid have come up over time — and how you can help with each one, while being more confident about your aid reliably arriving.
(1) Formal Charities / Aid Trucks
Since last October, it has largely been legally-registered charities that have been able to provide much of the food, medical aid and supplies for the bulk of the refugees. But the catch with this method of aid is that it is heavily modulated by Israel, especially at Rafah border. Israel has been allowing pathetically small amounts of aid trucks to trickle into the Gaza strip, most likely just for theatrics and placating international outcry. Aid groups say that 500 trucks/day are needed; the UN received only ~170 trucks/day during April, and only ~70 trucks/day in May [source]. Still, in terms of actual volume reaching the masses on the ground, this method of aid is the most effective one.
Pro tip for supporting this method of aid:
Charity aggregators such as LaunchGood.com (a Muslim crowdfunding platform) are very useful. But remember to do your own sense check too, as you scrutinize for charities that may seem questionable. I usually look for ample photographic evidence on a charity’s fundraiser page, before I decide that they seem legit and effective enough, and give them a part of my donations. (Even if my ijtihad / best discerning attempt turned out to be mistaken, Allah will still reward me for trying, In Sha Allah.)
(2) Direct To Families Aid
When formal charities were clearly unable to fill in the massive needs of hundreds of thousands of people under genocide, many grassroots fundraisers began springing up. The majority of these fundraisers are evacuation fundraisers — Gazans trying to pay to have their names added to lists of people allowed to leave Gaza and cross over into Egypt through the Rafah border. $5,000 is the standard rate per adult. Egyptian border control authorities have been making a fortune out of the genocide that they are practically abetting — bloodthirsty vultures profiteering from oppression (these authorities, not the people).
Many Gazans have been fundraising online through fundraising websites, often with the help of people abroad who collect the money for them and help transfer the funds to evacuate. Many have been successful, and Alhamdulillah I’m proud to say that I’ve contributed to some of these success stories of evacuation from Gaza.
While the majority of fundraisers are for evacuating from Gaza (of course), not all of them are so. Some fundraisers are simply individual families asking for funds to help them buy goods for their families within Gaza, or even generous souls fundraising to help people on the ground in Gaza (beyond just themselves).
Pro tip for supporting this method of aid:
Lots of grassroots efforts have formed on Instagram for aggregating these many fundraisers for Palestinians on the ground — crowdfunded, direct aid, not from formally registered charities. God bless all of these people trying to uplift the individual voices of the oppressed and suffering. One particularly good resource I follow is Relief4Palestine (Instagram: @relief4palestine). Their Telegram channel is just heart-melting (definitely join), as they share real-life Palestinians’ individual stories in a very simple format —a brief, many photos, and importantly, social media links, so that often you can extra-verify for yourselves that these are real people like you and me, with previously normal social media accounts, whose lives were suddenly turned upside down by Israel’s evil escalation of a 75-years-old genocide.
[Edit: the old name of Relief4Palestine was GazaDirect2FamilyAidSource, and they used to share and amplify individual Palestinians’ stories as I had described above. However, later on during the engineered famine, they maximized their impact by switching focus and solely distributing bulk aid to the masses, and renamed themselves as Relief4Palestine. But their work remains as amazing as ever.]
(3) Refugees in Egypt
Unfortunately, it’s quite difficult for the Gazans even on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border. Many are suffering. Being muhajireen (refugees), they critically lack help for starting over in all aspects of life: financial help, career help, residential help, food and water security, medical help, and of course, trauma-related care. Shoulders to lean on.
I worked with a brilliant activist on a project for Palestinian awareness online. That same person, who has done a lot for Palestine, even travelled to Egypt and helped refugee families there. Eventually, this brave person quit their job, moved to Egypt, and is the co-founder of a grassroots initiative called Egyptians For Palestinians — a community-supported initiative to help the many, many families. They help provide the basic necessities to hundreds of families — dignity, food, clothes, shelter, medical support, and much more:
Pro tip for supporting this method of aid:
I can personally vouch for Egyptians For Palestinians (Instagram: @egyptians_for_palestinians). Please donate to their amazing work here.
And there are other great resources for helping Gazan muhajireen (refugees) in Egypt, too. The famous Instagram influencer, @mufastamo, has teamed up with AlAmal Charity and gone to Egypt recently for this. Again, his ample photographic and video trail is very heartening in terms of reliability. Other such initiatives have sprung up, too — check out this awesome directory of on-the-ground support groups and services that some of them have collected here for Gazan muhajireen: [link].
(4) Direct Funds to Individuals
The situation on the ground went from bad to worse when Israel took over the Rafah crossing in May 2024, and began bombing and killing refugees in Rafah. The influx of aid trucks was severely slowed down. With resources depleting fast, prices within Gaza have skyrocketed.
Oh, and did I mention that the people in the north of Gaza, whom the Israeli occupiers have been trying to weed out and force down to the south, are being slowly and painfully starved to death? PEOPLE & CHILDREN IN NORTH GAZA ARE BEING STARVED TO DEATH right in front of us (whoops, pardon my Caps Lock) — multiple murders by starvation, after months of extreme hunger, have already been reported. People further south are also going without food for days. Dying or screaming or hanging on with hunger.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Reportedly, most of the banks in Gaza are no longer functional … but not all.
Pro tip for supporting this method of aid:
I wouldn’t recommend direct funds transfer to most people. But two words: networking, and muwakhah (brotherhood).
Let’s say that you are involved online in activism for Palestine. And let’s say that over time, some Gazans reach out to you, as they do to many people online, for kindly contributing and sharing their evacuation fundraisers. And let’s say that you point them in the direction of the fundraiser aggregators like GazaDirect2FamilyAidSource. Let’s say you exchange messages and words of support. Let’s say you begin talking with one of them, and you both hit it off. Let’s say you connect over your love of God. You share struggles. You connect.
Let’s say you realize how the way the Prophet Muhammad (may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) paired together refugees (muhajireen) and helpers (ansar) on an individual level, is the best form of integration and assimilation for refugees (referring to his example of muwakha / brotherhood formed in Madinah).
Let’s say that you connect well with your new brother over back and forth messages. You ask about his family and wellbeing. Almost worry yourself sick at work when the colonizers’ army attack their refugee camp. You thank Allah when he replies back to your messages that they’re safe.
Let’s say that, upon hearing of the escalating desperation since the oppressors took over Rafah border, you decide to send funds to your brother in need. What else would you do if, let’s say, your blood brother was trapped in dire need in the open-air prison of Gaza? Honestly, wouldn’t you do this?
Now, you don’t want to put yourself under scrutiny and danger, too. So direct bank transfers are a no. But online wallet-to-wallet transfers (like PayPal or … alternatives) can still work. If they happen to have a working account, your cash can end up on the ground. In their hands.
For your safety, let’s say, you only send a small amount that is likely to slip under the radar. And it works. Then much later, another small amount. And next time, you change wallets, too.
This method of on-ground direct transfer is not for everyone. Yes, you need to take care of own safety comes first — but also, what would you be doing if your own blood brother was starving there? Remember two words: networking, and muwakhah (brotherhood).
Erm … just check out this article series of mine.
Finally, the least we can do is to say a kind word to those Gazans who reach out to us online. Point them to fundraiser aggregators (#2 above, such as Relief4Palestine). Share solidarity and encouragement with them. It means a lot.
For those who can afford it, Allah in the Quran has heavily emphasized striving in His Path with our wealth. That includes spending for both the short-term as well as the long-term. All of the above methods of on-the-ground aid are short-term attempts at stopping the bleeding. But we don’t just want to give knee-jerk reactions in the short-term, as if we’re only trying to douse immediate feelings of guilt.
We also desperately need financing on the long-term fixes to prevent the bleeding in the first place. Awareness campaigns. Ads. Lobbying. Political advocacy. Student encampments needs lots of funds to keep them going. Local neighborhood to national to international — all levels of activism. Teaching. Spreading the faith.
So try to spend on both — the short-term and also the long-term (playing the long game too). May Allah accept all our efforts, and keep them sincere for His Sake. Eid Mubarak, everyone!