With Israel in a ‘crisis within a crisis,’ IsraAid ramps up services at home

Founded in 2001, IsraAid has offered humanitarian aid in over 65 countries, supporting vulnerable communities after natural disasters and wars, but since the Oct. 7 attacks, for the first time in its history, the nonprofit has provided emergency services at home in Israel. With the country still reeling from one crisis, IsraAid launched additional emergency services after Iran began its ongoing barrage of ballistic missiles at Israeli cities.

Last Friday, Yotam Polizer, IsraAid’s CEO, spoke with Jay Deitcher for eJewishPhilanthropy, about the group’s pivot to providing aid in its home country, the differences between the Oct. 7 and Iranian missile attacks, the difficulty of being an Israeli humanitarian organization in today’s political climate and its fundraising.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Jay Deitcher: How long do you expect to continue work in Israel?

Yotam Polizer: As long as we’re needed. IsraAid was created to work anywhere, but [not] in Israel. Just as we were winding down some of our programs in the south, in kibbutzim like Be’eri and Nir Oz and other places, then the Iran escalation came, and then we ramped up very quickly. In a way, it feels like we’re back to square one, because we’re dealing with thousands of people who are evacuated into hotels with very limited services with very severe trauma.

JD: How were you able to get these programs back and running?

YP: We still had staff. We never completely stopped. Our in-house emergency response team is leading the response right now, and we’ll probably have to ramp up again and hire more people. 

We’re still trying to understand how big is the crisis, how long it’s going to last, how many people will lose their homes. At the peak of Oct. 7, we had about 300,000 people out of their homes in both the south and the north of Israel. Now we’re talking about 6,000 or 7,000, but it’s going up by a thousand every day because we’re having constant attacks.

JD: What are the differences of working with the people who lost their homes on Oct. 7 and those who have lost their homes in the Iran attacks?

YP: The people from the south were mainly from the kibbutzim and the moshavim. Even though they went through a terrible massacre and trauma, the communities were, in many cases, very strong together. When you work with big cities like Ramat Gan or Bat Yam or Petah Tikva or Tel Aviv [the sites of some Iranian attacks], these communities just live next to each other, but it’s not really a community.

Obviously, the level of trauma. I’m not trying to say this is worse or that is worse, losing your home from an Iranian missile or losing your home because of a Hamas attack. Both are terrible traumas, but it’s a different kind of trauma. Also, Oct. 7 is an ongoing trauma because of the hostages.

There are some similarities. In the case of Oct. 7, people were evacuated to hotels across the country, but the two main hotspots were the Dead Sea and Eilat. Right now, they’re all over the place, in hotels in Tel Aviv, in Ramat Gan, so it’s different kinds of logistical challenges. The services they receive from the local government and from the national government are similar to what people received on Oct. 7, and therefore, the gaps — education, mental health support — are very similar.

JD: IsraAid started in Israel as an altruistic movement working at catastrophes outside of Israel, but you also started during the Second Intifada. What was the reaction in the movement then?

YD: The establishment of IsraAid was not connected to the Intifada in any shape or form, and, I mean, yes, you’re right, there was a crisis and conflict. The conflict in Israel has been there for a very long time, not just in the Second Intifada, there was the 2008 and 2014 and 2018 escalations.

We believe that Oct. 7 is something completely different in terms of the scale of the crisis and the level of displacement and the fact that it’s long-term. Oct. 7 is not gone. We still have [50 hostages] in Gaza, the war is ongoing, there’s almost 50 or 60% of the population of the north not back in their homes, so what we are seeing now with Iran is in a way a crisis within a crisis.

For us, the big decision was to intervene in [the] Oct. 7 [attacks], and it wasn’t obvious. The first few hours, we were, like everyone else, looking for our loved ones. But on Oct. 8, we sent our emergency response team to these evacuation sites, and then we realized that what we’re seeing there is very similar to what we’ve seen in Ukraine and in many refugee camps around the world where we operated. There are very few organizations in Israel with the same level of experience that we have in complex emergencies and humanitarian crises, and that’s when we realized that our help was needed at home.

JD: There’s a difference between going into different communities through altruism to say, ‘Oh, I’m going to help these people,’ and doing it within your community. What does it mean that you’re now doing it in your community?

YP: We are a humanitarian organization, but it’s not a lovey-dovey organization. It’s a profession. We have the best social workers in the country, I think in the world. We have the best medical professionals, the best water engineers. This is professional work.

Of course, there is a difference in the sense that we are living this crisis while we are also trying to help. There is a psychological difference, because that’s our country, that’s our people, but there’s no difference in how we’re trying to get this work done. What we’re trying to do is look at it from a very professional approach, purely from a humanitarian perspective. Where we can bring impact.

JD: How is being at home in Israel affecting the finances when it comes to donations?

YP: We are seeing some donors who only want to give to our work in Israel because, for them, it’s the top priority right now. And we respect that. We raised about $20 million since Oct. 7, and we’ve spent more than $15 million already. At the same time, I think the work we did in Israel raised our profile among new donors who didn’t know the organization, and now we’re able to build trust and a relationship. We hope that they will continue to continue to support us.

JD: How does the work in Israel affect your work around the world?

YP: To be an organization, a humanitarian, global organization called IsraAid at this time is not the easiest thing. But in many of these countries where we work, people don’t care so much about Middle Eastern politics, they care about their life and their well-being. Even in a country like Colombia, where they decided to cut their relations with Israel, the local government really appreciated the work that our team is doing on the ground.

JD: Is there anything else you think is important in relation to your work right now?

YP: When we think about the work in Israel, and we think about the long-term approach, we’re really trying to look at these communities who are left behind, so the Bedouins and Arab communities in general.

There are great organizations helping in Israel, and there’s a great, thriving civil society here, and there are strong communities. In some places, people can get back on their feet very quickly. Maybe they need us for a very limited time. And in other places, the Bedouin and Arab communities, the needs are quite severe. Especially with the lack of shelters [in their communities]. These communities who are vulnerable, just became more vulnerable.

JD: Does it upset you that donors will support Israel funding more than for other countries?

YP: It doesn’t upset me. I totally understand it. They have families here. I wish there was more support for places like South Sudan, for places like the Kakuma refugee camp, which is one of the largest refugee camps in the world. Our life would probably be easier if [we were] only working in disasters that are high profile, but we want to make sure we’re working in all these neglected places.

I mean, we’re doing this story now because of our work in Israel. Unfortunately, I don’t know if eJP or any other publication will be interested in our work in South Sudan. We’ve been there for 13 years supporting survivors of rape, and about 67% of the women and girls in the country were sexually assaulted. (Ed. note: eJewishPhilanthropy has reported on IsraAid’s activities in South Sudan and elsewhere in Africa.)

On the flip side again, I do see that when people learn about our work through the work in Israel or Ukraine or high-profile emergencies, we’re opening their hearts and minds to think other communities around the world, and hopefully when the crisis in Israel will be over, these people will be able to also support the work we’re doing elsewhere.