Caring for Displaced Israelis

Yael Eckstein  |  October 18, 2023

Yael was interviewed by the Washington Times, and she speaks about the many Israelis displaced from their towns—and how The Fellowship is helping provide basic needs to the survivors of the attacks:

“We are at all of the evacuation centers” where residents have fled, Ms. Eckstein said in a video call from Jerusalem.

Each resident was given “a special credit card that they could use for any of their basic needs, in the amount of around $600,” Ms. Eckstein told The Washington Times. “Every single one of those people and families from every single one of these those kibbutzim has gotten [a card, so] at least now that they could buy shoes without any bureaucracy.”

Many of the evacuees from southern Israel left with only the clothes on their backs and often barefoot, she said.

Ms. Eckstein said the people receiving assistance from the Fellowship and its partner organizations are not those who previously had faced deprivation. The organization’s 70-member staff in Israel has been “creating systems and partnerships” with other groups in Israel to get aid to those in need, she said.

“They weren’t necessarily poor before,” she said. “They had homes and cars, but their homes have been burned. Their cars have been burned. All of their belongings have been burned when the terrorists came in and burned down all those cities. And so they don’t have credit cards. They came without shoes, they don’t have their makeup or their clothes or their anything. They don’t have socks.”