Saturday, January 31, 2015

Perspective

Did you ever emerge from an absorption with a personal pain or sadness which is not objectively inconsequential, and then looked abroad and saw suffering on such a scale as to make you resolve to be less complaining?

My Twitter feed is full of bad news from Gaza.

Life there is as arduous and awful now as it was at the height of the Israeli bombing last July, but in a different way. Wrecked houses are still wrecked, homeless families are still sheltering in UN premises, there is a restriction on power and the import of materials for reconstruction as well as on medicines, and a multitude of other things that make ordinary life supportable.

The UN has had to suspend payments to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for repairs to homes damaged in last summer's war, because they have received only £88.8m of the £474m pledged by donors.

Here, Palestinian children look out through holes in a sheet at their family's house in the east of Gaza City (photo by Mohammed Salem/Reuters)

gaza-living-ruins 

Here, a Palestinian woman washes clothes at her damaged house in the east of Gaza City (photo by Mohammed Salem/Reuters)

gaza-living-ruins woman

Read this piece in the Chicago Tribune and you will get the picture.

If you would like to help, you can donate to the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians here.

This is what they will do with your money.

Thank you.

 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for bringing Gaza back into focus, Sue.
Have added my bit, and will do more.

Sue Hepworth said...

Thank you, friend.