–Alex de Waal, Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University.

Child in Gaza being measured to assess malnutrition

Malnutrition has been widespread in Gaza at least since 2007, when the Israeli occupation  imposed a blockade of many basic goods and impoverished most of the population. In addition, multiple Israeli air wars over the years destroyed agricultural land and food systems. MECA began working in partnership with Ard El-Insan in 2017 after a visit to one of the kindergartens we supported revealed signs of insufficient nutrition among young children like fainting from anemia (iron deficiency).

Since the genocide began a year ago, child malnutrition in Gaza has reached catastrophic levels. MECA and Ard El-Insan started a program to identify and treat children under five years old at two clinics in southern Gaza, where an enormous number of displaced people are now living.

As of mid-September, the program has reached nearly 5,000 children, providing vitamins and food supplements for those who are moderately and severely malnourished as well as education for over 2,000 caregivers in how to get the most nutrition out of the minimal food they are able to get.

Between July 3 and July 4, Israeli occupation forces carried out an extensive and brutal attack on Jenin refugee camp with multiple drone strikes and over 1,000 ground troops. 13 Palestinians, including four children, were killed and over 140 injured. The only health clinic inside the camp was severely damaged and remains closed. The water and sewerage network in the camp, as well as roads, were damaged and in some cases destroyed.

MECA supporters in the U.S. and around the world, made generous contributions for emergency aid to Jenin that enabled the local Palestinian Medical Relief Society to:

• Provide a team of doctors, nurses and social workers to assist approximately 1,125 patients with medical treatment and counseling during and in the days and weeks after the attack
• Provide wheelchairs, crutches, or walkers to 21 injured people
• Distribute dignity kits with critical hygiene materials to women and families who were displaced
• Train and equip first aid teams in the Jenin Camp and Jenin City to be prepared to provide critical help during future attacks

Homes in Gaza are outfitted with special house shields to protect families from wind and rain.

MECA partners also provide families in Lebanon with gas heaters and fuel in the harsh winter of the Bekaa Valley where they get snow and ice.

On December 27, 2022 Dr. Mona El-Farra, MECA’s Director of Gaza Projects wrote from Gaza:

Thunderstorms, strong wind, and heavy rain in different parts of the small enclave. Thousands of people who are living in fragile, tin-roofed homes that started to leak in the early hours of the morning. Mattresses, blankets, and clothes are heavily soaked with water. The basic infrastructure is not good enough to cope with such emergency—with no basic water drainage, no electricity and sewage pumping. In these conditions MECA partner organizations, staff, and  volunteers hurried to help.

Conditions in Lebanon are just as dire, especially for refugees. Even low-paid, temporary work is hard to find, and inflation is as high as 100% or more. There are nearly a million Syrian refugees in Lebanon and most live below the poverty line, with an estimated ninety percent experiencing food insecurity. Many people who fled war in Syria—Syrians and Palestinians alike—have joined the Palestinian refugees who had already been living in Lebanon for decades. They now live together in the overcrowded, dilapidated refugee camps built to “temporarily” house the families who fled the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948. Both displaced peoples live in extremely precarious financial and legal circumstances.

Last Spring, as families in Gaza and Lebanon faced another Ramadan in deep and widespread poverty, our friends at PaliRoots, US Palestinian Community Network, Palestinian American Community Center and Free Democratic Movement in Arizona, and Palestinian Public Health took the initiative to raise funds so that MECA could provide food to as many families as possible, as quickly as possible. As a result of these efforts and donations from hundreds of other people, MECA has distributed more than 2,000 food parcels so far in 2022.

Wafaa El-Derawi is one of four full-time MECA staff people in Gaza. She is a trained nutritionist and the coordinator of food distribution and other food projects. Wafaa is working with several of MECA’s partner organizations and many volunteers to deliver food parcels made up of rice, beans, lentils, cheese, fresh local produce, and traditional foods from local farmers and women’s food collectives, whose livelihoods are under constant threat.

I’d like to extend the people’s thanks to the Palestinian American community. Now people will have food on their tables and this support promotes the resilience of the people in Gaza. And I want to extend thanks from the women’s cooperatives and the farmers for the solidarity offered to them.
— Tareq, food distribution volunteer

MECA’s staff and local partners in Gaza are on the ground responding to the most urgent needs of children and families. We have been working since the first day of the attacks to provide urgent relief.

MECA was the first organization to bring food to families in the shelters and after asking what else they need we went back with water and hygiene supplies.

Though a ceasefire is in effect, there is still so much work to be done.

Please continue checking this page for updates on MECA’s emergency support for Gaza! And visit our blog for updates from our staff and partners on the situation in Gaza.

Photo by Ali Jadallah