Of the more than 25 million euros that was collected last year at a national collection campaign by GIRO555 for ‘all victims in the Middle East’, 9.1 million euros have now been spent on emergency aid. More than half of it went to Gaza struck by Israeli genocidal violence. For example, the donations are used for polio vaccines or flour to bake bread. This is apparent from an interim accountability Of the ten aid organizations behind Giro555, which was published on Wednesday.
The Action Day for the Middle East took place on October 16, 2024. In advance, some commotion arose about to what extent help to Israel was appropriate and whether auxiliary money in Gaza and Lebanon would not fall into the hands of Hamas and Hezbollah. Broadcasters ruled that the subject was “too politically sensitive” for an evening-filling TV show on Primetime and a joint radio marathon. With earlier Giro555 actions that was common, and more money was raised. In 2022, 184.5 million euros was raised for Ukraine, in 2023 128 million went to earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria.
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This report about the action day in Sound and Vision in Hilversum, in October 2024. The Belteam emphasized humanity. “Donating is always possible, if you feel so powerless?”
In the tables of the Giro555 answer, it becomes clear what the spending per type of help and per organization is to each of the countries or areas. For example, the money for Gaza was mainly spent on health care and the Cordaid organization has spent the most for Gaza.
However, it remains unclear how much help has already achieved a needy Palestinians in Gaza. Gaza only comes in “little bit”, says Giro555 chairman and Red Cross director Harm Goossens. He finds that “extremely frustrating and difficult to understand.”
From March, Israel blocked almost all humanitarian aid to Gaza for eighty days. That is in contradiction with international law. Help is now being admitted, although that is on a very limited scale. For example, no help truck from Oxfam Novib, affiliated with Giro555, has been permission from Israel since March to cross the border to Gaza. In the ‘militarized food aid’ that Israel and the US hand out on a few points in Gaza themselves, Israel kills Palestinians almost daily.
Provision chairman Harm Goossens during the National Action Day last year.
Photo Jeroen Jumelet/ANP
“If the gates were to open tomorrow, we can immediately provide medical help, food and shelter,” says Goossens. All Giro555 organizations “urgently” call “free and safe passage” of goods and care providers.
The intention is that the collected 25 million euros was spent at the latest in September 2026. After Gaza, most of the help (30 percent) went to Lebanon. For projects in Syria and on the West Bank occupied by Israel, around 6.5 percent of the total budget is each intended. 1.2 percent go to projects of Kerk in Action in Israel, mainly aimed at labor migrants and Bedouins. “You don’t know exactly where the money goes in advance,” says Goossens. From Israel, “less” demand for help than expected. “It is a rich country with good medical facilities.”
‘Thousands of lives saved’
Goossens is now, a year after the day of action, no longer in his stomach with the discussion about the Giro555 promotion. “It was about where you were in the conflict, instead of helping people in need, without the person’s prestige. Every euro is a euro. The money from the Dutch population is well spent, we have already been able to help half a million people and thereby saved thousands of lives.”
Although a large TV show was missing, the NPO did report last year from the Action Center in the Hilversum Sound and Vision. According to a spokesperson, the support from the NPO is in a large audience, offering context and “transparent informing the public, while retaining editorial independence.”
‘Wrang’
Thea Hilhorst, professor of humanitarian studies at Erasmus University, calls it “terribly harsh” that Giro555 help Palestinians in Gaza has reached little. “This is in no way the aid organizations to be charged. That responsibility lies with Israel, which through starvation, remembering help, use of excessive violence and the on purpose target of medical facilities, genocidal occurs. “
Should aid organizations no longer make a stamp? Hilhorst states that they are already lobbying in The Hague and are co-organizer of, for example, the red line protests, who mobilized a quarter of a million Dutch people on Sunday. “The problem is a deaf -stupid government that could do more, just like Europe, but does not respond to it.”
Elsewhere in the Middle East, Giro555 aid is also ‘desperately needed’ according to Hilhorst. She points to the Israeli ban on UNRWA, the UN organization for help to Palestinians. With the decision of the Trump government to dismantle development aid giant USAID, American donations to the region are also partly disappearing.
The fact that help in Israel is also offered shows how aid organizations are “not for countries, but for all vulnerable groups despite all the discussion,” says Hilhorst. “You skip between a group of critics who blindly sails on Israeli war propaganda and those who find too much to Israel every cent.”
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The decisive reason for the success or failure of a collection campaign is the degree of media attention, said René Bekkers, professor of Philanthropy, in NRC last year
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