Ongoing fast for people of Gaza

Raising awareness and funds for the humanitarian catastrophe

Nenagh Friends of Palestine launched its Hunger for Justice: Gaza Campaign two months ago to raise awareness about the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

Every day since April 15, one individual has been completing their own 24-hour fast for Gaza. While fundraising has not been the core aim of this campaign, so far the group has managed to raise over €6,000 for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, UNRWA, and local initiatives to send aid directly to Gaza.

Fergal McDonnell, member of Nenagh Friends of Palestine and lead organiser of the campaign commented on why the group thought it was so important to do this collective fast. “The motivation behind it really was to focus on the blockade that is going on over in Gaza. The fact that basic things like food, water, medicine; that these essential things are being blocked, it’s unconscionable really that this is being done and it was to highlight that in particular.”

IMPORTANCE OF CAMPAIGN

Fellow member of the club, Simon Cromer, also believes in the importance of the campaign.

“I wanted to show solidarity with the people in Gaza, the fact that there was the fasting element which is a big part of Muslim culture and with the supplies and food not getting in and also the part of remembering someone, that every day someone would remember somebody.”

While completing their fast, each participant of the campaign was asked to dedicate their period of fasting to a victim of the conflict in Gaza. For some participants of the campaign, this was the hardest part of their endeavour. Ollie Moore explained: “When your time is coming, you have to stop and think for a while. You have to dedicate this fast to someone, which sounds easy but actually in practice what it means is you have to work out who in 30-40,000 people you should pick.

“A lot of people find it very hard to open up to the grief and the scale of what is happening, so they just close off and they don’t get involved at all but I suppose, we have all tried to open up and it is emotionally tough.”

Mary McDonnell completed her fast in aid of Mohammed Awad Allan on day 17 of the campaign. “I picked a paramedic due to my own medical background. He went out in an ambulance to a call and as soon as he went to walk to the injured party, he was shot dead. I was thinking about all the paramedics here in Nenagh and Limerick who go out daily and little do they think they are going to be shot when they go to assist someone in need of medical care.”

Mike McDonnell did his fast for Roshdi Sarraj on day 12 of the Hunger for Justice: Gaza Campaign. His 15-year-old daughter, Treasa, also completed a fast on the same day for Layan Hamadeh, a young girl who was the same age as her when she killed.

PUBLIC SUPPORT

The group have been delighted with how people have responded to the campaign and have been very appreciative of all the people that have come forward asking to participate in their ongoing endeavour to raise awareness of the catastrophe in Gaza.

Fergal added: “We are getting a great response and that’s the truth of it. People are very complimentary about what we are doing and how we are doing it because it’s a little bit different to other campaigns that are going on.

“The general public have been very good, the amount of people that have come to us and said, do you know what? I’d love to do that too that are not on our group, its these people that are kind of manning the next month of our campaign.”

HOW TO TAKE PART

If you would like to contribute to this campaign and show your solidarity for the people in Gaza, then you can contact Nenagh Friends of Palestine on Facebook, Instagram and also by email at nenaghfriendsofpalestine@gmail.com