NIFC is raising urgent funds to provide humanitarian aid including food and clean water to civilians suffering in Gaza through the World Central Kitchen.
This fundraiser is now closed. With your support, NIFC’s Gaza Food Aid campaign raised over $91,000, which will provide food, water, and medical supplies to people in Gaza.
What is NIFC fundraising for, exactly?
Specifically, NIFC is raising money for the World Central Kitchen (WCK). Every dollar raised in this campaign goes directly to them. The global NIF community began raising funds for humanitarian aid groups in early 2024. Since then, it has contributed more than $2 million, 20 per cent of which has come in just the last few weeks.
How can we be sure that this food will get to innocent civilians?
The WCK brings deep experience providing humanitarian aid in extremely challenging situations politically. Risk assessment and robust due diligence is central to both of their response planning. The WCK uses U.S. government systems to screen participants for involvement in terror organizations. They also communicate closely with the IDF when it comes to aid distribution and comply with all Israeli military requirements.
Nevertheless, we recognize that aid distribution in Gaza is chaotic, and we as NIFC will not be able to exert control on the ground. This is a risk that we have weighed against the importance of getting people help.
With millions struggling to stay alive in Gaza, each of us has a role to play. As Rabbi Miriam Margles told us recently, “The Jewish obligation to preserve life and to feed the hungry sparks us to move to action at this critical time.”
Didn’t the WCK suspend its activities in Gaza after seven of its aid workers were killed in Israeli airstrikes on April 1, 2024?
Yes, though WCK resumed its activities in late June and remains active today. Getting aid safely to Gazans remains very difficult. Humanitarian organizations are facing a variety of challenges, chief among them the highly limited number of aid trucks the Israeli military is allowing to cross into the Strip.
However, WCK is serving the community with fresh water (over 1.1 million litres distributed in the first week of June alone). WCK has desalination capabilities and is supplying hospitals, camps and community kitchens for drinking and hygiene purposes while it waits with multiple truckloads of supplies to safely cross into Gaza from the Kerem Shalom border.
NIFC does not normally fund humanitarian aid, nor fund groups outside of Israel. Why make this exception?
It is the right thing to do. 1.1 million people in Gaza are on the brink of famine. We believe we have a moral obligation to help feed them. As José Andrés, the celebrity chef who founded the World Central Kitchen, wrote in the New York Times, “food is a universal human right. It is not conditional on being good or bad, rich or poor, left or right.”
When people do not have food, feeding them is a Jewish (and an NIFC) value. NIFC is a community of people committed to defending human rights. We cannot sit idly by at this time. This value is deeply embedded in Judaism, as it is in both Muslim and Christian teachings.
Feeding people living in Gaza is the right thing to do for Israel’s sake too. Israelis and Palestinians are destined to always live together side-by-side. For Israelis – and NIFC supporters who stand with Israel – to sit on the sidelines while Gazans starve, poisons the already bitter well for any future neighbourly relationship.
When something extraordinary happens, NIFC responds in extraordinary ways. When democracy was under attack by an extremist government in Israel in early 2023, NIFC responded by supporting the democratic pushback. When Israelis were brutally attacked on October 7 of that year, NIFC responded by providing humanitarian aid for Israelis. We helped bring evacuees to hotels , we supported (and continue to support) the Hostage Families’ Headquarters, we helped purchase ambulances for unrecognized villages in the Negev, and we funded emergency relief centers for Jews and Arabs in the south.
Finally, our effort to feed the people in Gaza does not come at the expense of our ongoing support for Israelis. Rather, this campaign compliments our funding for work that supports equality and democracy in Israel.
Who is NIFC working with in this?
World Central Kitchen (WCK) has a global track record of feeding communities in crisis. This includes mobilizing to feed Israelis in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks. Until April 1st of last year when seven of its staff were killed by the IDF (an act for which IDF leaders have apologized), it was providing more than 60% of all NGO food aid reaching Gazans. Within months, WCK resumed delivering aid.
Do they really need NIFC’s help?
Yes. The entire population of Gaza is experiencing hunger; there is a mounting humanitarian crisis. You might have thought that money would have been pouring into these aid organizations since October 2023 , but it is shocking how little money has gone to humanitarian aid organizations from donors in North America.
Moreover, NIFC’s campaign, specifically, makes a powerful statement: Canadian Jews will not stand on the sidelines and let people in Gaza starve. That is why we keep advocating for a necessary and robust food distribution plan, and we keep raising funds for WCK working to bring relief. Supplemental reading:
- José Andrés, “Let People Eat,” The New York Times
- Elisheva Goldberg & Maya Rosen, “Israeli Aid Policies Drive Starvation in Gaza,” Jewish Currents
- People in Gaza starving, sick and dying as aid blockade continues (World Health Organization)
- Strikes on Iran ease pressure on Israel to end starvation in Gaza (The Guardian)
- Israel appears to believe its war goals are getting closer as Gaza teeters on brink of starvation (CBC)
This fundraiser is now closed. With your support, NIFC’s Gaza Food Aid campaign raised over $91,000, which will provide food, water, and medical supplies to people in Gaza.