Support Emergency Relief in the Holy Land
Nowhere is safe in Gaza. Nowhere. Even as shells fall, destroying what has already been destroyed, another far more insidious danger looms for those who have until now escaped death:
Famine
The images of emaciated limbs and drawn faces of children haunting our screens are real. Death by starvation is real.
The United Nations has urged Israel to allow its “humanitarian partners to bring unrestricted and uninterrupted humanitarian assistance to Gaza.”
But Israel is impeding delivery of aid, allowing only about 10 percent of what is needed to enter the strip. The Israeli government has demolished hundreds of U.N. distribution centers and replaced them with fewer and militarized distribution centers. In Gaza, these facilities have been dubbed “death corridors,” because more than 2,500 people have thus far been killed seeking aid there.
Our church networks have secured some food and water that have trickled into Gaza, which is nearly hermetically sealed, cut off from the rest of the world, but that aid is far from sufficient even for the families cared for by Gaza’s two parishes. Our regional team in the Holy Land has assessed the three greatest needs as food assistance, medical care and psychosocial support — but even the professionals providing psychosocial support are starving, and many people eat only once every two days.
Amid the famine, the collapse of the health care and education systems, and the ongoing military operations, our mission has been to try to save as many lives as possible by providing immediate support.
Join CNEWA-Pontifical Mission’s efforts to support the church in Gaza respond to the needs of the community.
Your gift will help us acquire more food and drinking water for families and provide medical and psychological care for the sick, malnourished and wounded.
Pope Leo XIV has repeatedly called “for an immediate halt to the barbarism of the war and for a peaceful resolution of the conflict” in Gaza.
He has condemned the use of starvation as a weapon of war, and stressed the dire moral consequences of ignoring the dehumanization of the Gazan people and the robbing of their fundamental God-given human dignity.
As an agency of the Holy See, CNEWA is proud to stand with the Holy Father in steadfast commitment to this shared call for peace in the Holy Land. As human beings, as followers of Jesus, as Catholics, we will be judged by how we have responded to the desperate cries of the poor, to the needs of our neighbors.
And as members of the universal church, devoted bridge-builders and advocates for peace, we stand united in our support for the dignity of all human life. Please stand with us now.
Send your emergency gift now.