Palestinian Youth to Lead Humanitarian Response and Support Community Resilience Despite War Conditions

Today on International Youth Day, ActionAid is highlighting the incredible contributions of young humanitarians in Gaza who have been working amid hellish conditions and against the odds to support people over the last ten months. 

Young people supported by ActionAid and its partners in Gaza have been leading the humanitarian response in their communities, mobilising quickly and effectively to support displaced families and help medical staff and rescue teams, despite facing the very same danger from Israeli military attacks as the rest of the population and living in the same crowded, inhumane conditions.

Walaa is a youth volunteer with the Humanitarian Youth Group Palestine (HYGP), a group that ActionAid supported in its establishment, provided with capacity building and incubated during its early development stages, which has members in both Gaza and the West Bank and trains young people in responding to emergencies. The HYGP plays a crucial role in advocating for human rights and challenging the existing humanitarian architecture, particularly in Gaza, while also extending its influence to the West Bank, with members collaborating on advocacy initiatives and actively participating in decision-making bodies such as PNGO and the Education Cluster.

Each day, Walaa visits shelters to find out what displaced people need and works to raise funds so they can buy crucial items. She also organises recreational activities to bring joy to traumatised children and has worked as a medical educator with medical missions in Gaza.

Despite losing everything in this crisis, Walaa is determined to support others, telling ActionAid: “Life has changed since the beginning of the war, as [it has for] hundreds of thousands of [other] people in Gaza. We had been displaced multiple times. We were displaced from north to the south to seek refuge and find a safe place. I had lost my home, friends, work and everything. We pass through catastrophic conditions...but these conditions motivate me to continue my volunteerism and initiatives for supporting my people and draw the smile on the face of our children and elderly people with all possible means.“It is important to help and support each other and find hope amid this darkness, because people in Gaza who are not killed with bombing, they will die with starvation, coldness, fear.”

Khalid, a youth volunteer in Gaza who is also a member of the HYGP, has been supervising the distribution of hot meals and food to displaced people, and has helped coordinate the purchase of clothes and nappies for newborn babies in hospitals across southern Gaza. He has also designed activity sessions for children that provide psychological support and teach them about the dangers of approaching potential unexploded devices.

Khalid told ActionAid that the challenges of life in Gaza had only made him more motivated to help his fellow Palestinians. “These hard conditions and reality encourage me to continue my work to achieve my noble aim of serving my community,” he said. 

He believes young people have a vital role to play in leading the humanitarian response in Gaza. Khalid said. “In all stages of humanitarian action, youth have much to contribute as we have good knowledge on social dynamics, geography, available resources and social and available networks, [and] can help our country to prepare for, respond to, and recover from crises...our firsthand experience of emergencies can bring nation-wide solutions for resilience, stability and peacebuilding.”

Fouad, an experienced young humanitarian and one of the founding members of the HYGP, has been forced to support people remotely after finding himself stuck in Egypt following October 7. He had been travelling home after attending a youth conference in Jordan and was unable to return to Gaza. He said: “I started to suffer when I was separated from my family. I worked under pressure and anxiety due to the presence of my family and friends under bombardment.”

Conditions in Gaza have made coordination with colleagues there extremely difficult. Fouad said: “[I] worked hard to coordinate with youth groups under disconnectivity and blackout communication most of the time and the constant displacement of youth groups. Some of the volunteers I work with were injured during the bombing, yet we did not stop fulfilling our duty.”

Kate Khair is a youth activist and member in HYGP living in West Bank. Kate received several trainings from ActionAid, such as community needs assessments, participatory leadership, electronic facilitation, youth initiatives, and a first aid session. Kate is active in community work participating in some initiatives in cooperation with ActionAid, such as picking olives in the areas next to settlement and others. Kate says: “the training and initiatives contributed to developing my personality and gaining skills and experience in leading community and humanitarian initiatives”.

Palestinian have many needs in humanitarian response and actions.  Kate shares: “one of the important needs for us as young people, which we re working on in HYGP , is establishing a platform for volunteers in each city in Palestine  to contribute to humanitarian and community work. This platform will increase in initiatives and activities in the field of volunteering, advocacy, humanitarian work, and crisis intervention. We need institutions that host youth as ActionAid, so that we can participate in developing and defending our community and people and contribute to meeting their needs. We also need to sustain activities and initiatives so that youth work can be sustained”.

Baha Farakh is a youth activist from the West Bank who works to raise young people's awareness of the importance of youth work in humanitarian response. Bahaa’says :  "the role of young people in war and crisis situations is becoming increasingly important. At this difficult time when occupation is violating all international laws, humanitarian interventions are becoming increasingly difficult to remedy the effects of this devastating war. Despite the difficulties, we tried to make possible interventions through the skills we learned and we are learning through Global Platform Palestine -ActionAid Palestine to overcome despair and frustration. This is what I have done through my contribution with a number of institutions to a number of training courses, the formation of youth groups, emergency committees and the training of trainers. We call for the strengthening of the role of young people in decision-making to come up with the least losses from this devastating war so that we can have a real role in recovery and reconstruction. "

Aya Mohammad Zeydah. Aya is 22 years old .Aya lives in Bethlehem in West Bank . Aya is a community activist who actively participates in several trainings  and workshops aimed at developing skills and building capabilities in various fields. Aya received training from ActionAid on youth leadership in emergency . Aya has organized recreational activities aiming to provide children with psychosocial support. Aya believes in the important role of youth in emergencies, saying: “ It is important to support us to  be an active part of a rapid and effective response to crises. Young people have the capacity and potential to provide the necessary assistance during natural disasters and humanitarian crises. Palestinian youth need training programmes to raise their awareness of how to effectively and safely act and intervene in emergencies. Youth initiatives need to be financially supported .Youth leading emergency response also need to be provided with psychosocial support to support their  mental and physical wellbeing during periods of crisis”.

The crisis in Gaza has had a severe toll on young people, affecting the wellbeing of an entire generation. Thousands of children have become orphans, and almost every young person will have lost a relative, friend or neighbour over the last ten months. Many have been injured or disabled as a result of Israeli military attacks; an average of 10 children lose one or both of their legs each day. All 625,000 school children in Gaza have lost an entire academic year of education, according to the Ministry of Health, and there are no jobs. Many young people will likely face long-term health consequences as a result of prolonged hunger and a lack of nutrition. Yet despite this, dedicated young people have played a crucial role in addressing the humanitarian crisis and will be just as vital in rebuilding Gaza when the crisis ends. 

Riham Jafari, Advocacy and Communications Coordinator at ActionAid Palestine said: 

“From distributing fresh fruit and vegetables to starving families to providing comfort to traumatised children with games, painting and songs, young people are supporting their fellow Palestinians in Gaza in any way they can. With their ideas, energy and skills, their deep knowledge of their communities and their unwavering commitment, they have been able to provide truly valuable assistance to those in need, despite experiencing their own personal hardship and trauma.  “The message of young people in Gaza is crystal clear: they want a permanent ceasefire, now, to put an end to this horror and so that they can start to hope for the future, fulfil their potential and help rebuild Gaza.” 

Background Information

ActionAid in Palestine (AAP) is a part of global federation working for social justice and gender equality and eradicate poverty in more than 45 countries around the world. AAP started its work in Palestine in 2007 to strengthen the resilience of Palestinian People as ActionAid believes that they should enjoy their rights to freedom, justice and self-determination. AAP implements a number of programs through its engagement with communities and women and youth groups seeking to empower them and enhance their influential civil and political participation to understand their rights and undertake collective activism to address the protracted rights violations resulting from the prolonged occupation of Palestine. AAP works simultaneously to enhance their leadership capacity and knowledge to practice their citizenship in holding authorities and other duty bearers to account.

For more information, please contact

Riham Jafari

Coordinator of Advocacy and Communication in Palestine

Mobile:

+972 (0) 595242890

Email: Riham.Jafari@actionaid.org