Turkish NGOs Collaborate to Help Palestinians in Gaza
Turkish NGOs have come together under one roof to help assuage the pain of the besieged Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and contribute to a resolution of the conflict.
A special platform has been formed to address the problem in Palestine, under the leadership of the Turkey Volunteer Association Foundation (TGTV), which is an umbrella organization for many humanitarian aid, legal, medical and other volunteer groups. The Palestine Solidarity Platform said in its inaugural statement that its primary goal was to revive the conscience within people’s hearts and call the world to empathy. The platform aims to establish cooperation, especially with Egypt and the other Arab states, between those who oppose Israeli brutality. The platform announced its membership as “unions, chambers, markets, vocational organizations, politicians, academics, intellectuals, artists and media groups” and noted that humanitarian agencies, diplomats, politicians and the media all had a big role to play in the push for a free Palestine.
Together, the associations will cause strength to grow from unity, Münir Şahin, the head of the Palestine Friendship Association, a group for Palestinians living in Turkey, said at the meeting. Given the current global financial crisis, he said, their efforts to boycott Israel would play an important role.
At a meeting on Monday night in İstanbul’s Eyüp district to establish the platform’s vision, representatives of over 50 associations under the wing of the TGTV were present, in addition to spokespeople for the Union of NGOs of the Islamic World (UNIW), the Humanitarian Aid Foundation (İHH), the Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed Peoples (MAZLUM-DER), the Helping Hand Association (Yardimeli Derneği), the Jurists Association (Hukukçular Derneği) and Doctors Worldwide.
Turkish donors reach out to Gaza despite border problems
Even as a large shipment of aid to the besieged residents of the Gaza Strip sits at the border, Turkish charitable donors, including intellectual Fethullah Gülen, are continuing to assist their Palestinian counterparts.
As part of its aid campaign for Gaza in the face of the recent Israeli air strikes and current land invasion of Gaza, the Kimse Yok Mu (Is Anybody There) Association sent four trucks loaded with medicine, 20 tons of pasta and 100 tons of rice along with first aid supplies to Gaza. After sitting on the Egyptian side of the Refah border crossing for two days, the aid was finally able to cross into the Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning. Palestinian authorities in Gaza received the shipment, which included food supplies for babies and children as well.
Eyyüp Azcan, the coordinator in Egypt for Kimse Yok Mu’s current effort, explained that the shipment was the combined donations of Kimse Yok Mu and volunteers of the Gaza Red Cross and Egyptian Red Cross, but that the ongoing Israeli invasion had regrettably delayed the delivery of the much-needed supplies because fighting was taking place near the border. “According to the information we have from Gaza, they direly need supplies,” he said.
Tens of thousands of Turks are continuing to donate to Kimse Yok Mu (over TL 1 million raised in the last five days) and other aid organizations running charity drives to gather money and supplies for the Palestinian people. A Turk living abroad, internationally respected Turkish intellectual and scholar Fethullah Gülen, has donated $10,000 to support Kimse Yok Mu’s efforts in Gaza.
“The impact of the attack has been greater on those who believe that the level of civilization humanity has reached in our era may help find rational, reasonable and humane solutions to problems. As I am one of them [believers in humane solutions], I’d like to express the deep grief I am in and the need to insist on humane solutions to problems,” Gülen remarked last week.
Meanwhile, the Humanitarian Aid Foundation (İHH), the first charity group to get relief supplies into the strip last week, recently dispatched 38 tons of medicinal and food aid via cargo airplane to Gaza. The aid is to pass through the Refah border crossing into Palestine after landing at Egypt’s El Arish Airport. The supplies include milk powder, canned foods and various medicines.
Over 500 Palestinians have been killed and more than 2,500 injured in the Gaza Strip since the Israelis began an assault on the area last week, bombing targets including homes, mosques, pharmacies and schools.
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