A Belfast charity is helping to feed hundreds of families in Palestine by paying for food parcels.
Over the last 10 weeks, volunteers from Palestine Aid Belfast have raised £12,500.
Fra Hughes from the organisation said £2,500 buys a food parcel that feeds 100 families for up to a week, and their efforts have helped around 500 families so far.
“I was in Gaza in 2010 with George Galloway on a medical aid convoy. Some of the guys started up this charity when we came back to Belfast,” he told the Irish News.
Their early projects included paying for solar panels at an orphanage in Gaza city and for scholarships at Gaza City University, but he said both of these sites have now been destroyed.
As a registered charity, he said funds raised in Belfast were sent to the Bank of Palestine in the West Bank, which is then transferred to a team of volunteers in Gaza.
“They were originally from Khan Yunis but they are now displaced people in Rafah.”
Calling it a highly dangerous job, he said around 200 local aid workers have been deliberately targeted.
“They’re using starvation against the people as a weapon, that’s why they won’t let the trucks in.
“It’s an act of genocide. It’s very dangerous for the guys to be out delivering the food.”
The current war was sparked by the October 7 Hamas massacre, where around 1,200 people were killed in southern Israel and around 250 taken hostage.
Israel has claimed that Hamas militants are still holding around 100 hostages and the remains of over 30 others.
Palestinian health officials have estimated that over 34,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war, with around two-thirds of them being children and women.
Further information about the Palestine Aid campaign is available at www.palestineaid.tv
