SOS Malta launches Gaza appeal

Mercy Corps is working with the United Nations, donors and partner organizations and is mobilized for a full-scale response to the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. We have distributed blankets to dozens of families in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis and a Gaza City hospital, and are continuing to try to deliver a truckload of rice and other food staples for 1,800 people.

We're posting frequent updates from Gaza youth in our Global Youth Connectivity program, who are communicating with Mercy Corps staff in Jerusalem via SMS.

Your donation to our Gaza Crisis Fund will help us secure humanitarian relief items for besieged families.

You can also sign our petition for immediate humanitarian access to Gaza.

Have seen sad pictures of the children suffering in this current conflict. Children look to us adults to protect them from harm.

I remember this quote I read somewhere & wrote it down so I'd remember it.

"Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us." Golda Meir & "When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons."

How can SOS Malta send the aid to Gaza when Gaza has all its borders closed by the Isreali military? Gaza have been cut off from the rest of the world for these last 2 years. No food, medicine or fuel was and is allowed into Gaza by the isreali army.

NO Occupation = No war
Occupation = Wars
Killing school children is a terrorist act and can never be justified.

Israel is simply an armed gang, with the support of the UK; they were illegally permitted to settle on the Palestinian peoples land.

I fully agree with Andrew Gatt and Joseph Grima but I would

like to tell SOS Malta that my donation will be going to

'Dar tal-Providenza' instead. Sorry, but charity begins at home

and I'm sure that it is being used in a proper way.

It is simplistic and biased to blame Hamas for the current events. Hamas had entered into a truce on the understanding that the economic blockade of Gaza would be relaxed. Israel did nothing of the sort. I wonder how Mr Gatt and Mr Briffa would feel if they were living in a land constantly deprived of the most basic necessities and without freedom of movement.

Hamas allowed rockets to be fired to Israel only when it became apparent that Israel was intransigent and not acting in good faith.

People forget that Hamas was democratically elected as the government of the Palestinian authority. Democrats should always accept the outcome of free elections, even when the outcome is not too palatable.

People also forget when Israel pounded Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah and did not let him go out of it. If there is anyone responsible for the rise of Hamas, it is Israel which reneged on the Oslo Accord and weakened an already corrupt and discredited Fatah organisation.

I will mention the war crimes currently being carried out by Israel some other time.

Its quite clear, the Muslims don't want peace while a Jew owns land in their domain.
This is like Christians saying the land belongs to them, because the Romans and the Crusaders controlled the lands once.

If Hamas didn't have so much international support, maybe they wouldn't have been able to afford rocket launchers and the peace treaty would have been renewed after 6 months.

@ Andrew Gatt..well said! Hamas are to blame for all this. They did not renew the truce, instead taunted the Israelis by firing rockets; what did Hamas hope to gain by this irresponsible behaviour? Both Abbas and Sarkozy blame Hamas for this tragedy.

I would be happy to donate, as long as SOS Malta can reassure me that the funds collected are used to purchase the necessary assistance for innocent civilians and that Hamas are TOTALLY EXCLUDED from the equation. Aid should be given to the direct end-users and beneficiaries via distribution by an international and recognised aid agency.

Hamas simply cannot be trusted. They already blew away plenty of chances (pls excuse pun!)