Couple donate wedding presents to Belfast-based Gaza charity

“THE Israeli embargo on supplies for the Gaza Strip and Israel’s control of electrical power has created an impossible situation for Gaza’s civilians. Recently a family was forced to use candles during Israeli-controlled electrical black outs and the candles caused a fire that took the lives of three children,” reported Mohammed Asad of Arab Daily News.

It was reports such as this revealing how three young brothers were burned to death in a house fire in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City in May this year that prompted a West Belfast couple, Bríd Keenan and Peadar Whelan to donate money they received as wedding presents to the Belfast-based Palestinian support group Light for Gaza.

Yusra aged 3, Rahaf (2) and 6 months old Naser Abu al-Hindi perished when their home was engulfed in flames when a candle being used to light their home tipped over. Their 8 year old brother Muhannad was burned severely and while 6-year-old Ali escaped physical injury he suffers from deep psychological injury.

Light for Gaza funds artificial lighting to replace the oil lamps and candles that Palestinian people use due to the lack of electricity. Many of these families’ ‘homes’ are in fact not much more than shelters given the destruction wreaked on the besieged territory in Zionist attacks over the years.

Speaking at a fund-raising function in the Fort Bar, Springfield Road during Féile an Phobail where they donated the money, Bríd Keenan said thanked those who gave money as presents knowing that it was destined for a Palestinian charity.

Anne Boyle of Light for Gaza outlined the need for donations to “light homes and save the lives of Palestinian children.”

Boyle also pointed out that children need light for school work and by donating “it takes about £40 to light one home, people are also aiding the educational development of children impoverished by the Zioinist war amchine”.

The Abu al-Hindi tragedy is just one of a growing trend of home fire accidents, a previously uncommon phenomenon, resulting directly from power outages and the use of alternative means of lighting. According to Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, 29 people in Gaza have died in home fires since 2010, 24 of them children.

Palestinians in Gaza have suffered widespread power outages ever since Israel first targeted Gaza’s sole power plant in 2006.

The plant used to provide 30 percent of Gaza’s electricity needs, the remainder coming from Egypt and Israel. The United Nations monitoring group Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) stated last year that just 45 percent of Gaza’s electricity needs were being met.

Along with the electricity network, Gaza’s water and sewage infrastructure has also been badly damaged and Israel has refused to allow the entry of materials required to carry out critical repairs. The damage is so extensive that the UN has warned that Gaza could become uninhabitable by 2020.