Sponsor Charlie's half marathon to raise money for Gaza

Hello Everyone

The man-made crisis and genocide in Gaza has been torture to witness unfolding and I want to try to support them even if it's only a few hundred pounds. I'm going to run my first half marathon on Sunday 18th May in Hackney, and wondered if you could sponsor me.

Rather than improving, the story becomes more sinister by the day, with Israel's policies and actions resulting in the worst dual assault on defenceless Palestinians; an unprecendented military campaign that has massacred over 50,000 people and then a carefully planned starvation of the population by blocking aid.

Innocent and vulnerable Palestinians, in particular women, children, the elderly, the disabled, are all trapped in a tiny mass of land and surrounded by a extremely well funded military who paint them all with the same brush and indiscriminately murder and torture them. I can't really imagine how deep people have to dig to feel any hope.

I will therefore donate any money that you give me to two charities that are delivering on the ground help :

1. Gaza Free Kitchen

Set up by Muhammad Abu Jamous who created the campaign to help the displaced in the Gaza Strip and provide aid.

He created the “Free Kitchen Campaign” with the help of family members to provide assistance to the displaced people. They have lost everything and hunger is eating away at their stomachs. He invites you to join me in helping and feeding the largest possible number of people.

These kind of initiatives get people through each day, as hunger blights Gaza and makes life even more miserable than it already is.

2. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society

The Red Cross and Red Crescent movement has been a lifeline for people in Gaza, reaching millions of people with support.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has:

provided 1.6 million relief items

almost 1,500 staff and volunteers working

supported over 900,000 people with health services

provided psychosocial support to more than 131,000 people

reached over 100,000 people with emergency medical services

operated 27 medical points and clinics

set up 27 camps for displaced people in Gaza

I've watched the people who volunteer for Red Crescent do things that seem unimaginable: picking up body parts, pulling rotten corpses from rubble, climbing inside deadly bombsites to retrieve trapped people, get shot at, bombed themselves, and more disturbingly murdered and buried by soldiers who disregard all human rights to commit war crimes.

They are quite simply the most heroic people I've ever seen.

I will try to run the half marathon in under 1h 50mins which isn't spectacular but for a smoker of 20 years, it's nae bad. I'll also slow down if I go all wobbly. I will run it in a Palestinian Football shirt and a cap with the flag on it.

If you could be as generous as possible, I'd personally be grateful. Of course the bigger the donations, the more impact the receivers will feel. I will split the donations 50:50 and send them directly to the charities as soon as I receive them from Gofundme.

I appreciate anything you can give

Do feel free to come down to Hackney to watch, it's quite a special day

Charlie x