Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, founder of The Gift of the Givers Foundation, has appealed for negotiations, compromise and peace in the Middle East. The respected South African aid organisation has had a presence in Gaza for nine years.
Gift of the Givers doesn’t maintain an office in Gaza. Instead, the team of three people moves around distributing medical supplies, food and water. They are also involved in a women and child care centre, a health facility, and schools.
Sooliman says the organisation wants to send more people. “We are preparing to send medical teams but only if it’s not any risk to them.” He says a ceasefire or safe corridor is needed before the teams can enter Gaza. The organisation has 40 medical personnel ready to disappear in, Sooliman told GroundUp.
On Sunday Gift of the Givers reported that the team has been under severe physical and mental stress.
In 2014 Israel attacked Gaza for seven weeks. Sooliman said his team is reporting that this time it’s completely different. “They said it’s so difficult to plod around. There’s so much anxiety and so much alarm. The amount of bombs being dropped has never happened before.”
On Tuesday the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said that 4,200 people maintain been killed, and over one million people displaced, in honest ten days, while large areas of the Gaza strip maintain been reduced to rubble.
The South Africa’s Foreign Affairs Department on Monday in an attempt to access a humanitarian aid corridor open. “We are also looking at flying supplies on a cargo plane from South Africa and sending trucks to the border in Cairo.”
This is not a thing about Jews against Muslims; it’s human against human. – Dr Imtiaz Sooliman
Asked how this situation compared to other humanitarian relief efforts the organisation had been involved in, Sooliman responded: “This is the worst situation in the world because there is no exit route. You can’t secure out. The area is so small. It’s so easy to bomb it … Nobody can gain a safety situation. Where are you going to camouflage? There’s no such thing as safety in Gaza.”
Gaza is only 350km2. It could fit into Cape Town nearly seven times, yet it has half Cape Town’s population.
Sooliman described Israel’s call to evacuate more than one million people from the north to the south of Gaza as “quite ludicrous”. “How can you plod 1 million people in 24 hours when there’s no fuel and no cars? Where are you going to disappear to? Everything is bombed. How carry out you plod an intensive care unit patient?”
He also called for restraint from both sides. “Civilians cannot be attacked in a war and that applies to both sides … At the terminate of the day, both sides must remember that there is no winner in war. Everybody loses out. The only way to solve this problem in the Middle East is to manufacture peace, act rationally and produce compromises.”
Masud Akkad of The Gift of the Givers in Gaza. The foundation hopes to send more people to bolster its team in Gaza, if a ceasefire can be brokered.
“This is not a thing about Jews against Muslims; it’s human against human. It’s not a religious thing, it’s a human thing … it’s about humanity. It’s in the interests of all parties to produce compromises. The only way to solve the problem is to execute what is honest,” he stressed.
“When you act justly you will maintain peace, prosperity and peace in the entire region. Nobody loses out. Actually everybody gains more. They should disappear to the negotiating table, design compromises and give a honest solution. If you carry out that then we never maintain to send any more supplies to the Middle East again,“ Sooliman added.
He said Gift of the Givers were accepting donations for their work in Gaza.
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