A group of former students at an educational institution in southern Israel has raised tens of thousands of dollars to get two former graduates out of Gaza, to help a third who is still there, and to support the families of all three.
The young people met several years ago on a semester program run by the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies. The institute uses environmental issues as a tool to bring together students from Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, and the wider world.
Dozens of graduates and others donated to cover the fee of roughly $5,000 each that two of the graduates had to pay to leave Gaza via Egypt at the time, in January and April 2024. Both are now studying in Europe on scholarships, one for a master’s degree and the other for a doctorate.
The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt has been closed since May 2024, except for a brief period during a ceasefire from January to March this year, according to the IDF.
The third alumnus, still in the Strip, has told his Israeli friends that he is weak from lack of food and fears for his life on every trip to pick up humanitarian aid, one of the campaign organizers, Noa Polyakin Dotan, told The Times of Israel on Sunday.
Thousands of Palestinians congregate daily near food distribution points in Gaza, including three managed by the controversial US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which has been plagued by near-daily shooting incidents that have seen hundreds killed as they try to reach the distribution centers.
The United Nations says more than 1,300 people have been killed trying to obtain aid supplies in the enclave since the GHF began operating in May, most of them shot by Israeli forces operating near GHF sites.
The IDF has acknowledged firing warning shots at crowds that get too close to its soldiers, but called the UN tallies exaggerated, though it has not provided alternate numbers.
Polyakin Dotan, who can be contacted via email for information about donations, asked The Times of Israel to withhold all personal details about the three graduates to protect them and their families. All are in their late 20s.
Speaking about her friend, who is still in Gaza, she said: “When I was at the institute in 2020, we were 20 Israeli students, 20 Palestinians, and 20 internationals. It was the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, so we were in quarantine as a household of 60 people. We did everything together, and we bonded.”
“During that semester, I met my friend from Gaza,” she continued. “We are still close. He stayed to study in Israel for a while after the semester ended, and I would stay with him, even during the 2021 war” — a brief outbreak of violence in May of that year. “I was with him physically at that time, trying to ensure his family in Gaza was okay. He went back to Gaza on October 4, 2023. We were so excited for him, as he hadn’t seen his family for years. Then came October 7.”
Polyakin Dotan estimated that around $60,000 was raised through several campaigns since the start of Israel’s war against Hamas, sparked by the Hamas invasion of the Gaza border area on October 7, 2023, the murder of 1,200 mainly civilians, and the abduction of over 250 to the coastal enclave.
That figure includes almost $20,000 raised during a current campaign for Polyakin Dotan’s friend and his family, and around $7,500 towards a $50,000 goal for the families of the two graduates in Europe, who studied during the semester before her.
“The families have been displaced, and in some cases, their homes have been destroyed. My friend reported a few weeks ago that he and his mother could barely stand on their feet because the starvation was so overwhelming. When they go to get aid, they know they could get killed in the process. The humanitarian situation is horrifying, and nobody is spared. Basic foodstuffs are expensive, and there’s so little food being sold. Raising money is all we can do.”
On Sunday, Polyakin Dotan and other Arava Institute alumni organized events at a protest tent at the Cinematheque plaza in Tel Aviv as part of an “Encampment to Stop the War,” organized by the “It’s Time” coalition of peacebuilding and shared society organizations.
Speakers included Barak Talmor, who coordinates the Arava Institute’s Jumpstarting Hope in Gaza initiative. Earlier this year, that project was able to purchase food for tens of thousands of Gazans through its Palestinian partner organization Damour for Community, distributing 60,000 portions of cooked food prepared by an Arab company, which still had sufficient rice and chickpeas in storage in the strip.
Talmor told The Times of Israel that during the past three and a half weeks, “things really took a turn for the worse in Gaza, with food running out. There are no suppliers from whom to buy.”
He added, however, that the institute was successfully funding the daily provision of 10,000 liters of drinking water to a displaced persons camp run by Damour for Community.
Last week, following the publication of images of emaciated Palestinians, including children, the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said Israel would gradually permit the entry of goods into the Gaza Strip through the private sector, for the first time in almost a year.