British pressure on the "Interpal" fund destroys the lives of thousands of poor people in Gaza

Raed Musa - Gaza

Ten years ago, Ahmed Al-Dahshan and his son Muhammad received humanitarian assistance from the Palestinian Fund for Relief and Development (Interpal), which was a support for them in bearing the brunt of the difficult life in the besieged Gaza Strip for 14 years.

In a humble house of no more than 120 square meters in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City, Al-Dahshan and his family of 15 people live, including Muhammad and his family of seven.

Over the past long years, this aid has been a "lifeline" for this large family, with unprecedented poverty and unemployment in Gaza.

Renewed pressure Al-
Dahshan, 57, fears that this aid will be interrupted, in light of the constant pressure exerted on Interpal's headquarters in Britain.

The most recent of these pressures was issued by HSBC, which decided, starting May 17, to stop dealing with bank wire transfers from donors in favor of Interpal.

Under this decision, donors will not be able to deliver their monthly donation funds to the fund, which in turn will transfer it to the eligible poor Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, Jordan and Lebanon camps.

Al-Dahshan told Al-Jazeera Net that his relationship with Interpal started with the aid the Fund was providing to his late wife, who died after suffering from cancer.

He added, "The Foundation was sponsoring financially, medically and morally my wife's assistance, and she spared no effort to provide everything she needed to be fulfilled by God."

"Even after my wife's death, and due to the poor economic situation, Interpal still kept our financial and relief assistance," he says to the surprise.

Al-Dahshan described Interpal as a pioneering institution in charitable and relief humanitarian work, and any harm it will suffer from the pressures it believes are the result of Israeli incitement will be reflected in the lives of thousands of poor people.

Relief and care
Official and civil society estimates indicate that the unemployment rate in Gaza exceeds 60%, while the poverty rate reaches 80%, and the majority of two million people depend on humanitarian and relief assistance.

Interpal provides services in many vital life sectors, such as relief, social welfare, health, education, development and job creation.

Hani Salama, 50, is one of Interpal's beneficiaries. Nine years ago, the Foundation began to sponsor his travel to treat his son Fahd in Egypt.

Fahd (15 years) suffers from a rare skin disease, and Interpal, since he was six years old, has to pay three hundred dollars the cost of his monthly treatment.

Salama and his family continued to suffer from moving around in rented houses, often unable to pay it, until Interpal helped him build a small house on land his father gave him north of Gaza City.

Salama sees Interpal's failure to work and his inability to help him as a death sentence for his sick child and family.

Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, the director of the Gaza Regional Office for Interpal Mahmoud Labad said that the pressures on the fund are "old and new", and that they have a great impact on thousands of beneficiaries from the poor.

He stressed that the scope of Interpal's work is humanitarian and relief, and there is no justification for restricting it.

He explained that about 60% of the budget of the Gaza office goes in favor of the relief and social welfare program, and about four thousand children of orphans, the disabled and the needy benefit from it.

Contributions
Interpal also provides aid to the health sector, by supporting it with medicines, medical supplies, and aids for the elderly and the handicapped, in addition to the “Poor Patient Fund” which provides assistance for poor, diseased patients, according to Lapd

In the education sector, it was benefiting between four hundred and five hundred students annually until 2016, before declining due to the scarcity of donations, bringing the number of beneficiaries last year to less than a hundred, and it may collapse entirely if the crisis persists.

Within the education program, Interpal covers university fees for students in need, and fees for graduates who have not obtained their certificates due to "fee arrears", in addition to support for applied scientific studies, the school bag project, and the temporary employment program.

On the development side, Interpal is concerned with constructing desalination plants, distributing small plastic tanks to needy families, and providing public places such as hospitals, schools and kindergartens with large metal tanks, while ensuring that they are regularly filled with water.

Palestinian and international estimates indicate that 97% of the water in the Gaza Strip is polluted and not suitable for human use.

He referred to the need of the donation crisis and the ability of the Fund to fulfill its obligations towards the beneficiaries to four or five years earlier.

Last year, Interpal celebrated its 25th anniversary in Britain, which has 11 branches operating on its soil that collect donations and publicize the suffering of the Palestinians.