Cross-border centre struggles to help sick Palestinian children after donations fall-off

Just 300 children will get treatment this year, down from the usual 1,000 cases

Treatment for sick Palestinian children as part of a cross-border project is being cut back dramatically because of a drop-off in donations, a director of the Israeli centre which runs the project has said during a visit to Dublin.

Just 300 Palestinian children with life-threatening conditions are expected to be helped in Israeli hospitals this year – a drop from the usual figure of 1,000 children.

Other projects run by the Peres Centre for Peace, including cross-border sports programmes for children and training for Palestinian doctors in Israeli hospitals, are also expected to be cut back because of a fall-off in donations since the recession hit.

The centre depends on less than €4 million annually in donations from governments, foundations and individuals in the US, the EU, the UK, Denmark and Norway.

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It receives only a small amount of funding from Israeli donors and none from Arab donors, said Yarden Leal, director of development and external relations at the centre, which is the largest cross-border non-governmental organisation in Israel.

While the US and UK have awarded the centre charitable tax status, the Israeli government has so far not done so. The centre receives no funding from the Israeli or Palestinian governments.

“There have been a lot less donations since 2008 and this year unless we get really lucky we will only get to help about 300 children,” she said.

“We want to work on convincing Israeli and Arab donors to support us,” she said.

Ms Leal said it was “frustrating” to get Israelis and Palestinians to co-operate and connect with each other only to see setbacks because of what is happening politically.

"There are set backs but we always move forward because we believe our work is important when nothing else is happening. It is important to keep going because the misconceptions on both sides would be so severe," said Ms Leal, who is meeting Department of Foreign Affairs officials and visiting the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation while in Ireland.

The work was particularly important in teaching children about the lives of children on the other side of the conflict. Though the centre is non-political it doesn’t disguise political realities, she added.

“If we have a group of Israeli children who are waiting two hours for a Palestinian group to come we’ll tell them it is because they are stuck at a checkpoint.

If an event gets cancelled at the last minute we’ll tell the Palestinian children it was because the Israeli kids had to go to a shelter [because of bombings],” Ms Leal said.