Give Warmth to Gaza This Winter Season with Hala Sabbah from The Sameer Project

Jared: Welcome everybody to another edition of Millennials Are Killing Capitalism Live. It is good to be with you today. I'm really honored again to host our guest today, Hala Sabah from the Samir Project. I know folks know her. They know the work of the Samir Project. We've had her on I think this is the fourth time that we're having a conversation with her. And I think it's a really important time for us to have this conversation and to share it and to make sure that people really understand what's going on in Gaza right now, which I think is, you know, one of the reasons we wanted to have this discussion, right, is to make sure that people actually understand what conditions are like in Gaza, especially as it's the time of year when You know, frankly, like people are making decisions about, you know, giving Tuesday stuff, which was obviously yesterday, as well as, you know, holiday gifts, like maybe they want to give something in December. you know rather than giving something to a relative right give something in their name or in their honor um and support folks who could really use it and so anyway please take a minute and like the stream share it with folks on whatever platform you're on we're streaming on youtube instagram and on x right now uh or i like to say twitter i hate x but whatever um and Yeah, make sure that people know, share it with folks afterwards if they're not able to catch it live. And yeah, definitely also open to taking some questions from the chat today. I think we'll probably have time for that. So if you do have one, just make sure to put like a cue or a right question before and I'll try to catch it in the chat. So without further ado, I'm going to welcome our guest to the stage. Hala Sabah, as I mentioned, is one of the founders of the Samir Project and Welcome, it's good to be with you.

Hala Sabah: Hi, thank you, Jared. Good to be with you too.

Jared: Yeah, I mean, I know that you're always like super busy with everything going on and I just appreciate you taking the time always to connect with us and our audience and, you know, share the work that you all are doing. And I know we'll talk about that as well as just give people, you know, an update because I think that As I've mentioned the last time we had you on, you have, I think, a really good perspective because you talk to people who are on the ground in different areas of Gaza. You have a sense of what the needs are because your team is seeing them daily, experiencing themselves, but also trying to meet them for other folks. you know, like just gives a different perspective, I think, than, you know, talking to someone who has just their one individual perspective and maybe the perspective of people that they talk to. And I think to start, like, What I'd say is I think most folks probably understand on some level that this so-called ceasefire is not really a ceasefire, right? I think people understand that people are still dying in Gaza and that conditions in Gaza are still very bad. But can you have a sense? I mean, one, there's that reality and there's also a reality, which I've heard across the board, including from you all, that people have... dropped their giving significantly since the ceasefire. So there's sort of a disconnect, I think, between the fact that people have some kind of understanding here, but also I think feel probably like, oh, there's a ceasefire. There should be more stuff getting in. Like things should be getting easier for people in Gaza. So I wanted to kind of start there with just your assessment of, you know, what's going on in Gaza right now. how have things shifted under this so-called ceasefire and what are some of the significant you know needs have what hasn't shifted you know like maybe it's just some of that um so yeah i think the the so-called ceasefire started on october 9th um

Hala Sabah: And there was this kind of gray zone where no one knew if this was a bluff or if there's an element of truth to it as a ceasefire. So I think for the first week or two weeks even, everyone stayed put. Hundreds of thousands had moved from the north to the south, including 55 of our team members who were located right next to . Everyone kind of felt scared to move back north and then the bombing start again. After, let's say, 10 days or two weeks, people started to move back north. The devastation was huge. The amount of rubble, the amount of... destruction was much, much, much higher because, as you know, the military occupation from mid-August until early October was just going really hard on the north. So that created a huge struggle for people because when they started to go back north to their neighbourhoods, The infrastructure was completely gone. A lot of streets were blocked, so people would be staying in their homes or setting up tents, but water trucks can't even get there, right? So the first month, it was kind of just grasping what's happening. And as you mentioned, In this ceasefire, the bombings continued. The military occupation put a yellow line saying that anyone who steps into this yellow line gets killed, but anyone outside of the yellow line is safe. But as we've seen over and over and over, there's bombings every couple of days. Over 360 or maybe even 370 people at this point were martyred since October 9th. including our team member Amin Abdelal, who was Musab's brother-in-law, who was also killed in June. And unfortunately, Amin was killed with his wife, his twin kids, Yahya and Sham, who are three years old, his parents, and his three siblings. It was a very devastating time for the Samir Project. And a week prior to that, also during the ceasefire, we lost Ammar Zanin, a 14-year-old kid whose dad is a journalist and his mom is fully paralyzed because of the GBS virus. And that's why they're staying in our camp. Ammar simply went to look for his father in the journalist area and that's when it got bombed and Ammar passed away. So it's very disturbing to hear the word ceasefire because for us we're seeing the death over and over and over and just a few days ago the occupation, the military occupation shot two kids in the head and said that they were terrorists. And so they are continuing over and over and over to break the ceasefire, not only by killing and injuring hundreds of people, but also in terms of aid, right? So the agreed upon number of trucks that need to enter every single day are 600 trucks, which matches the amount of trucks that used to enter Gaza before the genocide. And people in Gaza need way more than 600 trucks a day, considering that they have been going through an ongoing genocide and famine for over two years now. The military occupation is allowing between 100 and 150 trucks in, and some days no trucks at all. And I think the quantity is one aspect of it, but what is in the trucks is another aspect of it, right? So these 150 trucks, Some of them are aid and some of them are commercial, meaning that the commercial ones are gone to shops and traders who sell these items. And then the aid ones go to international organizations who distribute those things. Luckily, there hasn't been any looting because the police enforcement is back up and running. So when you walk on the streets, you see the police. So the looting, you know, is almost non-existent at the moment of these trucks. The key international organizations who are doing distributions are UNICEF. UNRWA is not allowed to operate. So it's UNICEF, World Food Program, World Central Kitchen, and ANERA. Of course, the ones who have been there the whole time are MAP and Red Crescent, who do medical stuff.

Jared: And there are other organizations as well. I don't know them all on the top of my head.

Hala Sabah: But World Food Program and World Central Kitchen have been doing food distributions. World Food Program distributes flour. They distribute bread, sorry. So there are bakeries, they give them flour, they bake bread and bread is distributed for free. However, Palestinians in Gaza have over and over asked the World Food Program to stop distributing bread and instead distribute flour because the type of bread is not really good. Because it's done for free, people don't really think so much about the quality, right? And this is very important, agency and dignity in distributing aid is really important. So when people tell you, we don't want bread, we want flour, it's very important to comply with that. World Central Kitchen is distributing pots of food, rice and vegetables. They are not distributing to every single camp in Gaza, so there are gaps. which as mutual aid groups we try to fill because sometimes they will give two pots to a massive camp so some people don't end up getting anything. UNICEF has been doing diaper distributions which has been great because diapers has been one of the biggest issues over the last two years. And huge diaper distributions. UNICEF has also been doing tarps, cleaning products, and flour. So they distribute flour, not bread, which is great. I think the key challenge is that they're not allowing food to UNICEF and they're not allowing tents to UNICEF. Enera is the only one that we are aware of that has received tents. They have a warehouse in Gaza City that's full of tents. They are the Qatari or Emirati tents. So they're actually good quality, high quality. They fit seven to eight people. They're quite sturdy and waterproof. But the super upsetting thing was that during the first rainstorm, the tents were just sitting there, right? There were no distributions. I think after some pressure they started distributing those tents and those tents, the amounts of those tents don't match the needs. So OCHA said 1.47 million people in Gaza don't have adequate shelter. They're in makeshift tents or old tents. and they don't have proper shelter. So when you have a few thousand, there's no clear number, but if there's a few thousand tents that have entered, that's just a drop in the ocean for what people need. So that's the current situation. There are goods coming in, very small amounts. In terms of the commercial trucks, there are shoes coming in, there are clothes coming in, and there are iPhones coming in, which is obviously creating a lot of controversy. because they're letting in large numbers of electronics and phones and after two years of people you know phones getting destroyed by the bombings or theft or breaking their phones a lot of people bought phones and this is part of the zionist tactics to create a propaganda saying that look people in gaza are buying iphone 17 and you're saying that they're starving or they're going through a genocide who buys an iphone 17 when there's a genocide The people who buy an iPhone 17 during a genocide are people who have access to purchasing an iPhone 17 during a genocide. And I think this is very intentional from the military occupation. So these commercial trucks, they have food, clothes, shoes, and some items. Now in terms of food, they're very specific with what type of food they let in, right? They let in huge amounts of instant noodles, Nutella, chocolate, crisps or chips, fizzy drinks. The amount of vegetables and animal protein and, you know, like the more healthier food is let in periodically. So sometimes you'll find, you know, a kilo of potatoes for two dollars or three dollars and then maybe a week later it will be like fifteen dollars. So it really depends on how much they let in in that specific period. I think people in Gaza are shocked to be able to find prices like this because during the peak of the famine, a kilo of potatoes was $110, right? So for them, it's like $3 or $15. It's like a huge jump. However, people, I think the mistake that people have, because as you said, they have a one-sided view, is that everyone in Gaza is equal. And the reality is, is that some people live in tents, some people live in makeshift tents, some people live in demolished homes or half demolished homes, some people live in a very minor, very few people, but some people live in buildings that have very minor destruction. Some people have family abroad that send them consistent financial support, so they have some consistency and predictability in their lives. Some people don't have that. Some people have GoFundMes or accounts and have consistent support from people on social media. Some people don't have that. And some people are in areas or camps, even the camps within themselves differ. So some camps are a bit high up from the ground, far away from the sea. So when it rains a lot, it doesn't flood. Like it gets, obviously some people's tents get wet and the water enters. I'm not undermining their experiences. but there are some camps that are closer to the sea and also the sound from the north to the south differs like the type of sound so the people in the central and south area actually get it worse and the people closer to the sea get it worse and there are some camps that are like kind of in a ditch and those get extremely flooded Right. And later on, we'll tell you how we're trying to help those camps. But that is a huge challenge. So. Where was I? We're talking about. Yeah. So yeah, so when we come to talking about affording food, you have some people who right now, you know, they're content because they can afford some food, they can buy certain things, but there are people who cannot buy anything. They still fully rely on community kitchens for survival. same with water whether you have money or you don't have money without water trucks you don't survive right so this is why the the role of mutual aid right now is so crucial and despite that we've seen a 50 percent drop a bit of a spike over the last few days because of giving tuesday black friday and the rain but there are mutual aid groups that have seen 90 percent drop So the Zaynab project and Reviving Gaza, you know, people we've partnered with before, they've seen a 90% drop. So they've had to stop a lot of their distributions. They've had to hold off on doing so much. And the need is still there. The need is still there. I mean, people still need community kitchens and most importantly, water. And even for us as the Samir project, we used to do 300,000 liters a day. Right now we're doing 150, so half, you know, and even though international organizations stepped in and some water trucks are being done by them, it's still not sufficient. There's not a single day where we post water videos where we don't hear people saying we don't get enough water. So that's in terms of food and water. I don't know if you have any questions because I can just keep going.

Jared: No, no, no. I'll jump in. I mean, I think that's probably where I did want to go next, though, is just kind of talking about how has your work shifted as a result of the new dynamics with more organizations coming in and doing some things that weren't happening you know, three months ago or something like that. And kind of what are the main projects that Sumire Project is kind of working on right now in terms of filling needs?

Hala Sabah: yeah um so i think with the re-engineered famine on targeting the more vulnerable the people who can't afford food with the inconsistency of the types of food that they let in we continue to distribute food we're starting to shift away from distributing rice meals um because rice and flour are becoming cheaper and more accessible and trying to focus on doing vegetable parcels and vegetable pots, like huge pots to distribute in some of the camps, especially the ones that don't receive anything from the international organizations. We're doing this on a very small scale, I would say 15 to 20 pots per week. We are looking into doing vegetable parcels, hopefully 500 parcels at a time or something like that. But it's definitely like minimal compared to what we used to do in the past. As I mentioned with water, we've cut it down to half. We distribute in the north governance, so Beit Lahia and Jabalia, areas where no water reaches. So we're trying to focus our water distributions to the areas that international organizations don't tend to go to, or the super overcrowded camps in Khamounis, for example. So that's in terms of food and water.

Jared: Quickly, before you go further, Like, there's the whole thing of, like, there's certain, like, there's a certain portion of Gaza, right, where, because it's, like, the 53% or the, you know, like, so how does that, because you talked about different areas, like, how does that impact things for you all in terms of the occupation basically saying that there are certain areas that are under, like, a full ceasefire and this other area, like...

Hala Sabah: I mean, that's a really good question. I think as a Palestinian who's never stepped foot into Palestine and as a Gazan, one of the things that shocked me personally is that after the announcement of the so-called ceasefire, people went back to their neighborhoods regardless of the state of that neighborhood and regardless of the lack of infrastructure, the lack of... Anything, really. And some of them would have, you know, children who are injured or adults who are injured, people with disability, people with chronic illnesses. And I was so shocked as to how determined Palestinians in Gaza are to go back to their specific neighborhoods, including Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya, Jabalia, areas that are completely destroyed, no infrastructure whatsoever. And just to get some food, you have to walk for over an hour or take a cart or something. So it would cost you money just to get food to your family. and after a few conversations with people i understood that the mindset in gaza is that if you go back to your neighborhood the food and aid will come right like you go there you set up there are a few hundred families eventually like food and water will arrive And I think this is the core of the concept of Samud, right? Resilience doesn't give the word Samud justice in any way. But I think what's so interesting about Palestinians in Gaza versus Palestinians elsewhere is their attachment to their neighborhoods. And... I think this goes back to the siege that has happened for 17 years, that for people, their neighbourhood was their whole life. They know everyone, they know the streets, they know their neighbours, they know their friends. So I think that was a bit confusing for me on a personal level, but I also like really opened my eyes to the level of support that people have. And then when they started to go back to these neighbourhoods, a lot of them were close to the yellow line that you're talking about, right? Um, including Shajia, Jabalia, and Beit Lahia. And for example, we've had a family that many people reached out to us about. A family of 36 family members. I think 21 of them are orphans. The rest are elderly and women. Extremely vulnerable family. So when I called them to kind of get an assessment, they have no tents, no clothes, lots of injuries, a lot of orphans. I think it was 19 orphans or something like that. So when I told our team, they told me that that area is on the Yellow Line, right? And that days before that, shootings were happening. So there are risks, there are still risks for our team to go to certain areas because that's where they would target them. Luckily yesterday this family contacted us and told us that they left that area because there was too much shooting and they're now outside of the yellow zone so we will be able to provide support. but um yeah the military occupation still has drones and shootings and I think it's a very high risk for our teams to go close to these areas because they don't want people to settle there and to have water and food and temps set up um and um we give the um team or we have discussions with the team on those areas and what they think is best um one of our teams goes to tell it the hub which is the gold hill in baitlahia it's very close to the yellow line but there are almost 800 to 900 families in that area they don't get any kind of aid And our team member told us that him and his team are comfortable to go and do medical days in that area. And they do. They go once a week and they do a medical day because there are a lot of injured people. They do wound changes. They provide medication. And this is something for us as the Sameer Project Abroad, it's a step that we do not want to interfere in because people understand the levels of safety and risks that they take. as they have experienced this genocide and have been in Gaza their whole lives. It's not something we interfere to, but we do highly advise to stay away from the areas that are really high risk.

Jared: Yeah, thank you for that. So I didn't mean to cut you off, but I appreciate you giving that more additional context. But yeah, so get back to telling us kind of what you all are working on with your projects right now and the focuses.

Hala Sabah: Yeah, we're being quite selective because the donations have dropped and I think our medical medical team is doing quite a lot because this is very important to mention that no medical supply is entering Gaza. No medical supply and very, very, very little medication is entering into Gaza. So until now, people are having surgeries without anesthetic until now. And until now, There's very low level of medication, no medical supply. The hospitals are slowly kind of coming back to life. Al-Shifa got some parts of it fixed. RNTC is up and running after having been closed during the north displacement. So what people need in Gaza after an ongoing genocide for so long, is field hospitals to come in. They need to be flooded with doctors and nurses from all over the world. And we know for a fact that there are so many doctors and nurses all around the world who want to go and support people, but that's not being allowed to happen. right that's not being allowed to happen so it is it is really horrible and until now we still have tons of messages on our phone do you know if we can get this medication or do you know if this we want to get this medication i'll take a moment to mention the men right men in gaza who are injured um We had Ismail al-Maqadme, a case that was going to come to our camp. But when our doctor saw his case, when I saw his case, we were horrified. Hospitals said that there's nothing they can do. We tried to support in any way we can. And we were discussing with his family, because his wife passed away and he had four children. We were discussing with his family how we can support, and he ended up dying, right? May his soul rest in peace. And now the children are left without a father and without a mother. Men are extremely disregarded by the military occupation. They are not allowed to go on medical evacuations. If anything is needed for them to get better, it's not provided. We have Hussam Shabat, may his soul rest in peace. His brother is extremely sick. He has a heart condition and he's dying. All they need is a device for him to survive. And that device would not let Bilat into Gaza. Saad, one of the women in our camp, in the Fatah al-Arir camp, she's alone with three girls or four girls. And she has a machine or a device in her heart, near her heart, and the battery is running out. So we're literally watching people dying. We're watching people dying, and the fix is so simple. We also have Lina Shafi, who was in our camp, And Lina has been for eight months suffering from a kidney and liver issue and literally suffering in front of her family, not able to eat, not able to speak. And she spent 45 days in the hospital. Luckily, we've reached out to Fajr Scientific and they were able to get her out to Jordan yesterday. So that was really good news. And her treatment is actually quite basic. She just needed treatment. We have Dina Balawi, another young woman 19 years old who also has a kidney issue and and she's dying she went back north with her family they came to the fatality camp twice where we took care of them and there's just no way to get her out so this is all to come to say that we we are still focused on our medical campaigns we have two medical points one of the fatality come that's serving around 90 something families because as you know during the displacement the Rifat al-Ara'ir camp was like massively expanded from like 20 families to 106 families so now the Rifat al-Ara'ir point is taking care of 90 something families we have another camp called the Sawarha camp that has a medical point open for the public and they also have 10 patients staying in that camp. The Sawarha camp during the displacement, the ambulance department asked us to set up a office and park their ambulances. So we also support the frontliners. We have ambulances parked in our Sawarha camp. We've built a massive tent for the ambulance workers. We provide as much support as we can. We have also recently fixed a few fire trucks, one in Qarara in Khan Younis. We posted about it yesterday, I think. So we do focus a lot on medical right now. And then we also have two campaigns that are ongoing. Because I think when the ceasefire happened, we had a lot of discussions on where it's best to put the money. And when you walk on the streets and you ask anyone in Gaza after the ceasefire, what is it that you want? They'll say, we want to go back to our neighborhood. They'll say, we want you to set up tarps for us. We want you to give us tents. And this is why we launched the which means let's build a campaign, which basically focuses on that going into camps, asking people what they want, where do they want to go? And yeah, it's the return home campaign, the first one. So people, we pay for their trucks. We've moved 30 families at a time, more than three times. So around 90 to 100 families moved from the south to the north. We set up tarps for people. We clear roads. So a lot of people are shocked when they see our videos of clearing roads. We only do side roads, we do them in coordination with the municipalities. The reason we do that, the key reason we do that is to make sure that the water trucks gets to those areas. Because even though those areas are full of blocked streets and rubble, people still live there. So instead of them having to carry jerry cans for like kilometers at a time and walking over all that rubble, we send our team to assess those areas and to see if they open one street or two streets, how much easier is it going to be for people to get water or to get any sort of aid. And we've done multiple, we've done in Khan Younes, we've done in Gaza City a couple of times, and we're going to continue to do more. Of course, this is the role of international organizations. This is something that requires a lot of tractors, a lot of machinery that the military occupation is not letting in. The military occupation is not letting in tractors they're not letting in building material they're not letting in caravans so you know what we're doing is with extremely limited resources There are a few tractors that are still running. Gas prices fluctuate a lot. It was around 30 to 35 shekels around two weeks ago, which is around $10. Now it's 75 shekels per litre, so it's double, right? So when we do these campaigns, it's really like the biggest expense for those campaigns is the gas. But it's not something that is going to stop us because I really think part of the sumut is not just water and food. It's about people being in the place that they want to be in. And in a lot of our videos, you're going to see a lot of people saying, I want to go back to my neighborhood because even if I had to live through all these difficult circumstances and lack of aid, at least I'm in my neighborhood, at least I'm around the people that I love. So this campaign came from a place of hope, a place of sumud, a place of love, and it's something that we're going to continue to do until there's more clarity on what the situation will be in Gaza. The second campaign is obvious, winter campaign. The rainstorm started, the winter came. This is the third winter in genocide in Gaza. And this winter campaign is also on the first link, the return home campaign. And if you click on Donate, you'll see the things that we're focusing on. We're focusing on tarps, blankets, shoes, sweatsuits for kids. And yeah, there you go. They're all written there. Sweatsuits, boots, mattresses. Prices fluctuate a lot. So actually right now the tarps are a bit cheaper. They're $50. We should update that. Blankets, if we buy like large amounts, we get good deals. So because there's some commercial goods coming in and prices are dropping, we are able to do massive bulk purchases at the moment. But I think, you know, some people see our videos and they see we bought 1000 blankets or we bought 50 tents. The need in Gaza is just so much bigger than what mutual aid groups can do. So much bigger. So what mutual aid groups do is a drop in the ocean and providing some relief or solace for a few families. And even that, even that is a struggle right now. So when I hear from other mutual aid groups like the Zaynab Project and Reviving Gaza that they're barely getting anything, that they're getting $100 every few days, that's very alarming because the very little support we can provide people now that the price has dropped, now that there are some trucks coming in, until some clarity is... You know, with this unpredictable situation, most of the people in Gaza right now think that the genocide is going to accelerate again. That's that's the expectation. So until that happens, the least we can do is provide some solace and support. And I think that's it's extremely disheartening to see that the donations dropped a lot and that there's this misinformation or even censorship of the realities of what's happening in Gaza.

Jared: yeah i mean it's it's just hard i think to wrap one's mind around you know in a lot of ways i mean this obviously there should be a flood of aid people shouldn't have to pay like you all shouldn't have to pay for blankets and mattresses and things like this. Right. Um, but it's still, you know, like you say, like some of the goods are aid and that's mainly, you know, flour and food and things like this. And, um, You know, other things that people obviously need in, you know, the winter and as they're trying to reestablish some semblance of shelter after all the destruction, you know, are still going through the marketplace primarily. And I mean, most people in Gaza still have no way to work, right?

Hala Sabah: No, I think the work that is available, some people work within the government, the municipality, schools are up and running again, so teachers are back to teaching in schools, but the income for that is inconsistent and it's a very small amount, so that people can go for two, three months with no income. Mutual aid groups provide work, so we have, we thought we had 100, but when I was calculating the other day, we actually had around 130 team members some full-time, some daily paid workers. We have TechMend who's 20 team members. So we have around 150 people who have consistent income, right? So mutual aid groups are also important that they provide income for a lot of families. And some people which we want to support and we were hoping to had we gone into phase two are freelancers. So you have a lot of youth in Gaza who have amazing, amazing skills. They can design websites or help with social media or do translation or stuff like that. And there were some workspaces and there still are some workspaces where people can go and do some freelance work. for organizations or for individuals outside of Gaza. So there are some people who have that type of income. But what we're talking about is a very, very, very small fraction. The majority of people, they go and buy some basics from supermarkets and then they go to far away areas and just sell them for a tiny fraction of profit. People like go to the dumpsters and collect plastic or wood and try to sell it to people. So unfortunately, for consistent and adequate salaries, like the Samir Project, our average salary is $1,000 per month. It has been throughout. where $1,000 a few months were nothing and $1,000 right now or something. But at least there's that consistency, right? There's that consistency and predictability that I'm going to have that income. For the majority of people, I don't want to give numbers because there are no clear numbers, but I would say just by my prediction, 95% of people in Gaza don't have consistent income.

Jared: Yeah, no, I mean, thank you for you know, again, like these are things I, I just think it's like, there's such a lack of good, you know, I mean, obviously like they've killed all the journalists, right? Like, so this is the, the reality, right. Of that. Unfortunately, there's just not good information very often about these things, which are so essential to kind of understanding the reality. Right. You know, and we can, yeah so anyways i appreciate that um one person asked this they asked um that they were trying to contact some your project to see if they will accept clothing blankets towels shoes but cannot find contact details other than financial dis donations any uk contact details i mean so there's that question but just more broadly like how what's the best way for people to get in touch with you all um you know either for questions or for support that's outside of financial

Hala Sabah: Yeah, I'll answer that question first. So we do not bring aid into Gaza. That's not a part of what we do at the Samir Project. We just purchase what's available inside of Gaza. I believe that the international organizations that are bringing aid into Gaza at the moment have hundreds and thousands of things that are just parked outside of Rafah and Karim Abu Salim borders. I don't know who would accept blankets or jackets. We are not aware of that and to be honest, I don't think anyone would be accepting right now just because nothing is going in at large amounts. It's just being trickled in and we have some aid that's been there for months. And so that's regarding that. What was the second question they had?

Jared: I just asked it of just like, what is for people who want to get in touch with you all? Like, what is the best kind of channel for them to do that?

Hala Sabah: Yeah, I think. And so we are three people who are based outside of Gaza who work on this. We receive on average Each of us receives over 100 messages a day. Each of the platforms that we're on, TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter, we get 100 plus messages a day. So we just receive an insane amount of messages. We try as much as we can, myself and Lena, who have access to those social media accounts, to respond to as many people as possible. um but it's just impossible for us to get to everyone so we really apologize if we haven't gotten back to you what we are trying to do right now is to secure some funds like a grant or something so that we can hopefully build a website that has that faq right because for how long have we existed a year and a half i think um we've just been in emergency mode the whole time And now that things slowed down a little bit, genocide continues, but there's a little bit of breathing space. What we're trying to do at the moment is to create a website with an FAQ and have some updated data there so that people can just refer back to that rather than feeling the need to message us all the time. And I think that will just make it easier to have a place with all that kind of information. I'll just also mention that we have a fiscal host, so we are not a registered charity, we are a mutual aid group, a grassroots group that got a fiscal host. What does a fiscal host mean? It means that they receive all of the money that all of our donors send through CHUFT And then they do their due diligence to make sure that the money we receive, especially in large amounts, is not connected to any money laundering or Zionist organizations. And then they funnel that money into Gaza for us. So that creates protection for the team abroad. And it also creates protection for the team on the ground. And you can always reach out to Social Change Nest. Their name is in our bio on Instagram. So you can always reach out to them and ask them any questions about our financials.

Jared: I appreciate that. And I totally understand because also, Like, I get dozens of direct messages every day, and it's only because I, like, retweet or quote tweet campaigns from Gaza, you know, and so I'm not doing, like, one iota of what you all are doing, but there's also no way for me to respond to all of the DMs I get every day, you know, and so, yeah, I totally get it, and I think it's an important thing for folks to understand is if you're, because there's so much need right now in Gaza, like if you are doing anything related to that at all, you are going to be kind of overwhelmed with the amount of outreach that you get, you know, whether that's people asking for support or whether it's people who are trying to support you, obviously with the work that you all do. it's both right it's people that are looking for for help but also people who you know want to give you things or other things and just to the point that you made to make it clear for anybody It makes total sense what you said about like the blankets and stuff, because, yeah, I mean, nothing does get in without the occupation saying it can get in, which is why there's so little of even the aid that, you know, these major NGOs have able to get into Gaza. Right. And so it would be impossible for you all to take on the kind of role of trying to get stuff in, you know, and it would also require you to be you know, like UNICEF or something like that, you know?

Hala Sabah: Yeah, exactly.

Jared: All right. So say a little... Last time you were here, we talked a little bit about your team. And, you know, you shared early in this that you've lost some more people, which obviously are, you know, heartfelt condolences. I mean, that's got to have been one of the most devastating aspects of doing the work that you all have done. But I think it was also... a moment when you shared last time where we got to see you smile a little bit and some joy come into your face thinking about these people that work with you on the ground in Gaza. And I guess, how are they doing? And what do you see from them right now? Or what would you say about your team in Gaza?

Hala Sabah: I would say that the mass displacement that happened from mid-August to early October was the hardest time for the Samir project and the team. It's almost like every time you think it can't get any worse, it kind of does. I think it was very devastating for our 55 team members to leave their homes. Not all of them actually came. There were like five team members whose family and them refused to come down and they continued to do water distributions in the north. But the majority came down to the south and it was very devastating. It was very devastating because there was no um no clarity at the time on like what's gonna happen and if they have left the north forever a lot of team members lost family members during that time because a lot of their family members refused to leave the north so we were just getting news every two three days of like you know and some of our family members lost their uncle some of our family members lost his aunt and her kids and her grandkids. So there was just a constant stream of bad news. But I think, you know, In Islam, in the Quran, it says in every devastating experience, there's some good that comes through. And I think the good that came through is that we really have to stick together as a team to hold space for each other during this very difficult time, because a lot of the team members You know, they had to stay 10 people in one tent. There was no space. Space was such a huge thing during that period. You know, like people were fighting just for a spot to put their tents in. So our teams, each member had got only space for one tent and they had to squish, you know, like 10 or 12 people in one space. They had to continue their work. They had to work in areas that they're not familiar with or that they don't know. Um, but yeah, it brought us all together and, um, we stuck through it and we hired a large number of people during that time because there was just so much going on. Um, during the famine, the peak of famine and followed by this mass displacement, we hired, I think maybe 10 new people, um, which also brought in a lot of new perspectives, a lot of new skills. And it's not until, you know, the maybe early November where everyone was able to take a breath. And then we lost Aneen, right? Aneen and eight members of his family. And we lost Ammar Zaneen. And the principal of our school, Mr. Ahmad, lost five team members just two weeks ago. So it's as if, like, you know, we tried to take that breath of, like, okay, like, maybe we can have a moment. And then this poor team just gets... hit with one thing after the other um what we are doing next week uh hopefully we can share some of the images of that playing a one-day retreat for everyone the whole 150 techmed the north the south the cleaners the senior coordinators they're all getting together and they're going to have a day that's full of fun which we're very very excited about And they're going to have team building activities, they're going to have to sing some music together, they're going to play volleyball. And so I think this is something that everyone needs, because it's just been so stressful. And I think, you know, there's this perception of the ceasefire, but in terms of aid and getting um things to people it's just as intense it's just as intense the focus might not be fully on food right now like it was a few months ago but people are more scattered now whereas two months ago during the displacement everyone was in a very limited amount of space so it's just different types of challenges um but we are we are very proud of our team um It means death shattered us, but in some ways there's that kind of passion to keep going and doing things in his honor and in Mossab's honor. And we are trying to provide them with more mental health support. A lot of our team do mental health therapy sessions that we pay for. We are doing this retreat to kind of alleviate some of the the pain that is ongoing for our team. And we hope that this is the end of the pain and that something changes in the next few weeks, a miracle happens and we enter phase two and that all of this nightmare ends.

Jared: Yeah, I certainly hope so. What I wanted to ask is, what would you all, you know, if you all had more resources, right, what are some of the things that you would like to do or some of the things that you could fulfill within the current campaigns that you think would be, like, really meaningful to folks? You know, I just kind of want to, you know... One, if there's just somebody listening with a whole bunch of money that wants to throw it at your project, you know, but two, just for regular people who are giving to kind of also understand, like, you know, what are the aspirations for you all, you know? Yeah.

Hala Sabah: No, that's a good question. I think it's twofold. I think in Gaza, What we do want to do more of is sustainable projects. So we have been supporting the Arab Protection of Nature, partners of ours that we are very proud to work with. invest in farms and beehives I don't know if you saw the videos we bought 50,000 or something or 30,000 kilos of sugar so that the beekeepers can continue with their work after you know 90% of their beehives have been demolished so I think regardless of what happens in Gaza, whether the genocide and the killing accelerates again, whether we stay in slow genocide mode, whether we enter phase two, I think it's so important to provide people with a way to make money, a way to have to return some agency to increase their ability to provide for their families to sustain themselves. So we've been trying to do that with our partnership with our protection of nature We've done that with our partnership with Women Initiatives, Noor and Adnan. They've been with the smear projects from day one and now they've returned back to the north. They've opened their sewing factory and now they're going to train 20 women on how to sew and hopefully be able to provide one or two of these women with sewing machines so that they can continue and make a source of income for themselves. So those are the kind of projects that we are passionate about that we want people to to do. We are doing some cooking initiatives in Darf Atlarir camp. We don't like to be, you know, we don't want to create a culture within our camps of just consumption, but also production. So we buy some ingredients for women. Sometimes they make Kaak, which is a Palestinian sweet, and we distribute it to camps. Sometimes they make pastries. So we try to create this kind of culture of like we need to serve our community as a collective. It's not just that if you work for the Samir Project, you provide for your community. So I think these are the kind of ideas on the ground that we are hoping the international organization covers the basics like food, water and medication so that we can use our skill sets and the experience we've had over the last two years to kind of support people in that way. And also supporting, you know, workspaces, supporting opening people's own businesses, that kind of thing. The second thing I think is for the team abroad. We are burnt out, I'll say it. We are burnt out, we are tired. There's the three of us and we have two to three translators that we pay whether part-time or full-time to support in translating the videos mainly. We recently got a new hire. I believe that they want to be anonymous. I'm not sure actually. But they will be, they're also Palestinian, a huge asset for us because I think the three of us just need that extra support and they will be doing data organization because we have an insane amount of data. We've documented every single thing we've bought and they will like now organize that data And hopefully when we have a website, put the results. You know, how many liters of water have we done since we've launched this new project? How much food have we distributed? So they're working on that right now. I think in terms of operational costs, so for us, the team abroad, the translators, the co-founders, the new team member, just having some income would be really, really beneficial. But also to be able to pay consultants to create a website, to fix it, to use data management tools. I think for the longest time we've been in emergency mode that we didn't allow ourselves to think about these things. But I think now We know for a fact that after doing this for a year and a half, that we're not going to call it quits, right? We're not going to be like, oh, okay, that was like a band-aid solution because of the lack of international organizations. And now we're going to close this in your project and walk away. Our commitment to Gaza is long-term. So we want to find sustainable ways to do this. And we're just talking to funders now and applying to grants and hoping that we get some funding for the operational cost outside of Tesla as well.

Jared: Yeah. Well, I think, I hope, but I think people will, you know, support you all in those endeavors. You know, you know, I would think that, I would think that, you know, folks should give you grants and they should support the work that you all are doing, you know, absolutely. All right, so I have one more question from me and then a couple things in the chat. First of all, we have somebody from Gaza who just is watching and just sending our love back to you. Sending love from Gaza. Definitely no ceasefire. It's a slower genocide. We should definitely be investing more in local Gaza-based initiatives rather than in NGOs. Thank you. And so yeah, before we pivot to other stuff in the chat, You know, you've talked, as we've talked before, and I hesitate to ask this because it's a question about sort of limits of giving, and I want people to give, right? Because I think that one thing that is clear is that people are not giving as much as they have been. they're not giving as much as is needed. And I think it's important that initiatives like yours and others on the ground get supported. So that first and foremost, the question I'm asking is not to take away from that. But what we've talked about in the past also is sort of the limits or the things that giving itself cannot do. And I know that there's this weird kind of limbo state that a lot of things are in right now with this so-called ceasefire and all of that. But it seems to me that it is still a very important time for people to not lose sight of organizing around Gaza and in mobilizing and all of those things that we've talked about in the past. You've talked about direct action in the past and things like that. So what are your thoughts on that kind of you know, how to deal with that, I don't know, whatever people are feeling right now, and how to kind of move in this kind of strange time right now?

Hala Sabah: That's a really good question, and... As a mutual aid group, the Samir Project noticed during the peak of famine in July and the intensification of bombings in the north during August and September that Gaza was more presence in international media, maybe not always portrayed or most of the time not portrayed the right way and not with accurate information, but there was a presence. Gaza was huge on social media, right? There was just so much like posting and people talking about it to a point where we felt like it was almost like a trend. which is problematic in its own way, but at least people were aware, donations were there, protests continued, direct action continued. I think what happened during this limbo time is that the in-betweens or the people who are not super politically aware kind of fluffed away and the people who stayed are the comrades, the people who are politically aware, the solid community that didn't just exist in the last two years during the genocide. A lot of these people have been supporting Palestine for years and years and years. And I think that's the challenge, that we're losing the masses. And I think that this is very, very intentional by the military occupation. This is not a coincidence. They thought, okay, we're getting bad PR globally for murdering over 100,000 people. So what we should do is we should continue to murder people like Deena Balawi, like they were doing to Lina Shafi, like they did to Ismail Al-Maqadni. We should continue to do it, but in a slow way and in a way that doesn't create uproar. So this is very intentional. This is by design. They lowered the international pressure by slowing down the genocide. And I think that's the issue right here is that if people are not seeing these images on their screen every single day and they're not seeing babies starving and they're not seeing children's limbs being blown away it's kind of like okay it's not that urgent anymore but the reality is is that people are still dying people are exhausted people are malnourished people need support and again what's happening in Gaza is not about Gaza what's happening in Gaza has a ripple effect on the Palestinian cause, on the liberation of Palestine. It has a ripple effect on what's happening in Sudan and Congo. It has a ripple effect on what's happening in Latin America and Venezuela because it's all the same superpowers. So giving up on our cause is giving up on the fight against the system. So I think it's very important. It's crucial actually during this time that people work on, yes, doing fundraisers and collecting money and donating to mutual aid groups and making sure that they are dedicating a certain amount of time to that and effort. However, The most important thing is to continue the disruption and the direct action. And I think people have levels of risk that they can take. We are going to post about a campaign that was done against Microsoft, right? A campaign against Microsoft that takes mobilizing and takes a certain level of action is not necessarily considered high risk. You're not going to go to prison because you're campaigning against Microsoft for their complicity in genocide. Whereas other groups have been put as terrorists because they did direct action and they started to block weapon factories and that kind of thing. And some people have been sentenced for a very long time. They've taken the ultimate risk. They've taken the ultimate sacrifice and all the respect from Gaza to them for doing that. um but i think all kinds of options need to continue and i think the more focused people are on a specific thing on a specific zionist entity or on a specific complicit entity whether it's in tech whether it's in retail i think it's so important to find your community right because the samir project would not exist today had i not found lena dajani and translating philistine This mere project would not exist today had I not found a community that is able to support us. We have organizations like Rawa, like PurposeFed, incredible Palestinian activists who have our back all the time. We have an incredible community that we've built on social media. So my advice to anyone who wants to do everything they can for Gaza is to assess the level of risks that they're able to take to find the right community and to find the right target. and just become obsessive, because that's how the Samir Project worked, because we became obsessive. We work 24-7, we have a goal in mind, and when we think about the mutual aid work we do, we do not consider it humanitarian work. This is a part of our resistance. This is a part of our goal to get to the liberation of Palestine and hopefully the liberation of other countries. So that when you think about it this way, it stops becoming so intimidating that, you know, I either have to go to prison or do nothing at all.

Jared: Yeah, I know. Thank you for that. Someone asked in the chat, what are some of the other groups that you mentioned that Sameer Project works with? Hadn't heard of them before. One of them was the Zaynab Project, right? I think I can pull up their social media.

Hala Sabah: Yeah. So the Zaynab Project, it's Z-A-Y-N-A-B. Zaynab Project is founded by a comrade in the United States. They have a 501c3, which is very important to some people. They do excellent work. We've partnered with them before. They have an orphan program. We've sent them so many orphans before. They've registered them in the program. And the Zaynab Project has such high ethics. And they do not just pay for the family, you know, $100 per month. They pay per child $200 per month. So when they take a child, they make sure that they have funding for that child long term. And they take multiple orphans from the same family. They take children who have lost a dad or a mom. And they also take only survivors who have lost maybe their whole family, like Bilal, one of the cases that we've sent them. So yeah, I think the Zainab project is super aligned with our ethics and values, fully trusted. They have a 501c3 and they deserve everyone's support. And we also have Revive in Gaza. Revive in Gaza is launched by two, a brother and a sister from Gaza. One of them evacuated during the genocide and is currently in Egypt. And the other one is here in the UK. They are as grassroots as it gets because the people who work with Revive in Gaza are their friends who just, you know, they use their phones. they go into the areas they're in and they distribute food, they distribute water, like their key thing was water, but then they expanded to doing food. We have supported Reviving Gaza during the famine and gave them over $160,000, I think, throughout the famine to distribute to areas other than the areas we were distributing in. And they honestly did an excellent job in terms of documentation, in terms of documentation in terms of everything, like they're a great mutual aid group. The last one is Arab Protection for Nature. They've existed way before the genocide. The Samir Project, the Zayna Project, Reviving Gaza all popped up during this genocide. But Arab Protection for Nature has been there for, I believe, 15 to 20 years. And they really focus on self-sufficiency by working on, you know, planting trees and farms, like investing in farms, beehives, fishermen. They do this in Palestine and in Jordan. And they have a very strong presence in Gaza because they've had a team and they have great knowledge, deep knowledge about the farmland, the farmers, and the fishermen that existed before the genocide. And they've actually introduced us to Madline, who I think one of the boats, the flotillas was called after her. She's the only fisherwoman in Gaza, or one of the fisherwomen in Gaza. And she's now staying in the Rifat al-Arir camp because her husband got injured recently, unfortunately. But yeah, APN are great. We love them and they've taught us a lot throughout the way.

Jared: Thank you. No, that's great. Appreciate you sharing that. I don't have anything else. I just want to encourage people, again, the link tree is in the show description. Just remind folks, again, as I pull this up, that, you know, the return home campaign here at the top is the one that we talked about it the most. But you will do continue to do your medical campaigns, right, in the Rifat Al-Arir camp as well. And then also, I know we talked about this last time, but it is helpful if people just give directly over Venmo, right? Because it processes more quickly, right?

Hala Sabah: Yeah. So Venmo and PayPal we use and we send directly into accounts that get us cash in Gaza. So we don't pay any commission on that, which is great. And so whatever is easier, I think sometimes for people who want to get data on where the donations went to, we recommend Chuffed just because they get emails with all the updates. So it depends like whatever the donor wants. Whereas with PayPal and Venmo, we don't get your emails and we don't get any information about you.

Jared: Yeah, I've given to Chuffed and so I get those updates, but you know, I think that if you've given to Chuffed once, then you're going to get those emails and updates. So then you can send through to Venmo or PayPal, um, so that it processes more directly and there's no, no commissions on it. Um, but yeah, thank you so much Hala for taking this time and for talking to us and all of our solidarity to you and your team. both in Gaza and not in Gaza, for the work that you continue to do. And I hope that, like I said, that you will be successful in getting some more support so that you all can kind of move into a state of you know, just having some of those things that, you know, you need for the work that you're doing to kind of sustain it over time. And just, you know, tremendous appreciation for everything that you all do. And I really just hope people, you know, during this month, I mean, on an ongoing basis, I had somebody, I posted this on Patreon that we were doing this episode and I have somebody who just commented and was like, oh yeah, I give to the smear project out of every check that I get paid. They're like, I can't give very much, but I give a little bit out of every paycheck that I get. And I thought that was beautiful that, you know, folks are doing that kind of thing. And so, yeah, like just, just support on an ongoing basis. You know, I encourage people to do that. It doesn't mean that, you know, everybody understands that everybody has limited funds and, you know, you can't do more than you can do, but yeah, very much appreciate the work that you're doing.

Hala Sabah: Thank you so much. I'll just say a couple of things in terms of like giving from your pocket. We really appreciate that. We know people that, you know, have taken money from their daily activities to be able to donate to the Sumir Project and other mutual aid groups. But there are also ideas for fundraisers. We have a group in Portugal that we heard about. A friend of ours bought an olive tree farm, and a group reached out that is called, I think, Olive Harvesting for Palestine. And they came and harvested the olives and used it to make olive oil to sell and donate to mutual aid groups like the Center Project. So I think, you know, you can find your passion, you can find innovative ways to fundraise money. It doesn't necessarily always have to be out of your pocket, like, It can be within one of the communities that you are a part of. It can be through an activity, a dinner, anything like that. We've had all kinds of people. You know, we had beekeepers who made honey in the UK and sold it and donated to the Samir Project. So I think it's very important to remember that. And I think it's also important to remember to tap into our rage in a healthy way, in a way that doesn't burn us, but keeps us going, right? I think, you know, feelings like guilt kind of brings it back to the individual rather than the collective. So I think feeling guilty is not beneficial to yourself or to the cause or to the collective in any way. In Islam, Islam encourages us to keep going, to keep serving. And this is part of the task. This is part of why it's happening to see like, for how long can we serve? For how long can we give? For how long can we focus on the collective? For how long can we focus on the justice? And I think that's really important for everyone to find the tools and the community and the ability to keep going. And I also want to thank everyone in our community, because we don't really get the chance to do that. Without these donations, we wouldn't have a team of almost 150 people. Without this community, we wouldn't be able to do what we do. So we hope that the community sticks by us for however long this takes. And we will hopefully do our best to be agile and continue to support our community in Gaza in the way that they see fit and change it as many times as needed until hopefully this genocide completely ends. And thank you, Jared, for having us again.

Jared: Of course, anytime. Somebody said they'll do a concert on Saturday close to Berlin where all donations go to Falestine. We'll mention the souvenir projects. Appreciate it for sure. Yeah, and I think I'm glad you brought that up because I think it was one thing that I meant to talk about with you that I forgot to was just all of the creative ways that people can support. And I mean, we were doing... You know, some of us support individual campaigns as well in Gaza. And Sina Rahmani from East is a podcast. We were doing some kind of conversation fundraiser a while back, and he was just talking about how, you know, his relatives were all coming home for something and he was going to, you know, hit them all up to give something to the campaign. Right. And I think just things like that, too, of just, you know, it doesn't even have to be people who are super politicized around Palestine. Maybe they're not even that, you know... whatever but like you know you have that opportunity to say hey I'm doing this I'm supporting this like I would like you to do this and

Hala Sabah: know people you put that peer pressure on your family members too these holiday seasons so all right we are we are creating a christmas kit um so if you want to gift someone a donation to the samir project or to one of our campaigns we will create a a link that we'll put in our link tree so people can you know print the certificate and print a small card with a qr code to do exactly what you just said

Jared: awesome oh that's great i love it all right i'm gonna let you go but thank you so much for your time and again for the work that you do thank you thank you everyone