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1. Embed this notice
   Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 02:10:51 JST Aral Balkan

   • Joy

   Hi everyone,

   I’ve just launched the Gaza Verified Emergency Appeal to get our remaining 8 families who are stuck in the danger zone in the North to relative safety in the South.

   https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

   Based on conversations @joynewacc and I have had with them to ascertain what they need (transport, land, tents), we have set the campaign goal at $15,000.

   To kick things off, I’ve made a personal donation of $1,000.

   These families are living in terror under nightly bombings by Israel. Please, if you can, help them survive Israel’s ongoing genocide. And please share this as widely as you can.

   Thank you!

   💕

   PS. The donations are being collected by our not-for-profit, Small Technology Foundation and the entire sum, minus Stripe’s fees, will be transferred to the individual fundraisers of the families. We have suspended our own fundraising for Small Technology Foundation for the duration of the emergency appeal (https://small-tech.org/fund-us/).

   PS. If you keep the campaign page open, you will see the progress meter update and donations coming in in real time.

   #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Spook-adu 🎃 repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 02:13:00 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc And wow, second donation has come in within seconds… we’re at $1,010 :)

     (I’m not going to send updates on every donation, don’t worry, but yay!)

     🥳

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 02:17:15 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc Yay! It’s so lovely to see the donations streaming in :)

     We’re at $1,140 as of a few seconds ago with multiple new donations.

     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 02:18:25 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc I’m sorry, did I say $1,140, I meant $1,340 :)

     Thank you so much!

     (We’re almost at 10% of the goal)

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 02:26:32 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc We’re at 10%… we’ve raised $1,500 of our $15,000 goal *does a little dance* :)

     Thank you!

     🥳

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 02:30:27 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Txo!?
     • Elena Rocks X :cerdito:
     • sara
     • Joy

     @txo_elurmaluta @joynewacc @sagilca @ElenaMusk Not easily at the moment, sorry. I coded it up in a day and I don’t really want to touch it while the campaign is going on.

     I really appreciate the offer, though, and if I find we need to reuse this for a future campaign for our Gaza Verified families, I will definitely ask for help with this.

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     Txo!? (txo_elurmaluta@mastodon.eus)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 02:30:29 JST Txo!?

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc Amazing!

     Is there a way to make the page multilingual? If so, we could translate to spanish, basque and some more.

     If you need it in a file in certain format like json or php with the strings, we could do it if you have a model, so you don’t have to format it all.

     Cc: @sagilca @ElenaMusk

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 02:37:51 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc Please help us spread the word!

     If you have a web site and you want to promote the Gaza Verified Emergency Campaign, you can do so with a very simple image embed with a link:

     <img
     src='https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/embed.svg'
     alt='Gaza Verified Emergency Appeal: Eight of our Gaza Verified families are stuck in the danger zone in the North of Gaza where Israel is bombing civilians every evening. Please help us to get them to relative safety in the South. Donate now to help save the lives of eight families.'
     ></a>

     (See: https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/#please-share)

     Thank you!

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 02:37:57 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Stefan Bohacek

     @stefan Thank you 💕

     Here’s hoping it can make a difference! And do so in time.

   • Embed this notice
     Stefan Bohacek (stefan@stefanbohacek.online)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 02:37:58 JST Stefan Bohacek

     in reply to

     @aral Incredible work!

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 02:40:05 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc We just passed $2,000! We’re at $2,200 :)

     Yay! 🎉

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 02:55:47 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Paul Sutton
     • Joy

     @zleap @joynewacc Thank you so much! 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Sutton (zleap@qoto.org)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 02:55:48 JST Paul Sutton

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc

     Done, well it is on a blog post

     https://zleap.net/blog/gaza-verified-emergency-appeal

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 02:57:14 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Stefan Bohacek

     @stefan 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Stefan Bohacek (stefan@stefanbohacek.online)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 02:57:15 JST Stefan Bohacek

     in reply to

     @aral I think it will.

     I'm just thinking about how much the fediverse has (infamously) raised for the Harris campaign, compared to other fundraising efforts.

     And I get it. People are weary of scams, and they might feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of individuals asking for help. All that's fair.

     But you did all the hard work for us. You created a shared fund that gets distributed, and you did the vetting of the individuals.

     There really should be no excuse now.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 03:01:20 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc We’re almost at 20%… we’ve raised $2,868 :)

     Thank you so much, I have a feeling we’re going to do this.

     (Just had to update the amount while writing this post) :)

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     Zii0 (zii_0@corneill.es)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 03:02:56 JST Zii0

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc in case some people would be skeptical about the prices and why they need that amount of money, here is an article from a renowned newspaper giving about the same ones: https://theintercept.com/2025/09/20/israel-gaza-genocide-cost-displacement/

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 03:04:06 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Zii0
     • Joy

     @zii_0 @joynewacc 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Zii0 (zii_0@corneill.es)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 03:04:08 JST Zii0

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc and I almost forgot, thank you for all you are doingof course!

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 03:12:24 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc 🥳 We’re at 20% of our goal! :)

     You really are amazing. Thank you!

     (If you keep the page open, you can follow along as it updates in real time: https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/) :)

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 03:14:43 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • kat

     @kataclyst Thank you so much! 💕

   • Embed this notice
     kat (kataclyst@spore.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 03:14:44 JST kat

     in reply to

     @aral Donated!

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 03:15:41 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc I’m sorry, did I say 20%? I meant to say 33%!

     Wow, we just had a $2,000 donation!

     Thank you so, so much!

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Claus Cramon Houmann (claushoumann@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 03:27:43 JST Claus Cramon Houmann

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc not much but chipped in

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 03:27:43 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Claus Cramon Houmann
     • Joy

     @claushoumann @joynewacc Thank you so much :) 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 03:34:06 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc Folks, thanks to you, in the first hour of the Gaza Verified Emergency Appeal we’ve already raised more than one third of our goal of $15,000 to get our eight remaining families in the North to relative safety in the South.

     Something tells me we’re going to do this.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 03:36:54 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc 🥳 Just as I was writing the last update, we just got another $2,000 donation and we’re now over half way to our goal.

     We’ve raised $7,761 in the last hour.

     I can’t express how grateful I am for your support of our families.

     You are literally saving lives with your support.

     Thank you!

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     Stefan Bohacek (stefan@stefanbohacek.online)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 03:42:08 JST Stefan Bohacek

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral I've been checking this page myself, really exciting to see the fediverse stepping up!

     @joynewacc

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 04:10:25 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc Two hours ago we launched the Gaza Verified Emergency Appeal for the 8 Gaza Verified families that are still stuck in the danger zone in the North of Gaza to get them to relative safety in the South.

     And we’re almost at 60% of our goal thanks to you wonderful folks of the fediverse.

     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

     So many thank-yous!

     💕

     PS. I just realised that – having coded the page in a day – I didn’t put in a condition for when we’ve actually met our goal 🤦♂️ At the speed we’re going, I better get on that ASAP! :)

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 04:20:24 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc 🥳 60%

     Thank you! :)

     (We just got to 61% as I was writing that. We just passed $9,000!)

     Follow live with streaming updates at:
     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 04:21:23 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy
     • Kai Bernau

     @kai @joynewacc 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Kai Bernau (kai@typo.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 04:21:24 JST Kai Bernau

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc 💪

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 04:22:36 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • gastarbajterica
     • Joy

     @gastarbajterica @joynewacc Thank you 💕

   • Embed this notice
     gastarbajterica (gastarbajterica@dju.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 04:22:38 JST gastarbajterica

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc

     Many thanks for doing this.
     I hope we will make it!

   • Embed this notice
     Furbland's Very Cool Mastodon™ (groupnebula563@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 04:41:52 JST Furbland's Very Cool Mastodon™

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc boosted! would also tag the new @palestine and @mutualaid groups

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 04:41:52 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Furbland's Very Cool Mastodon™
     • Joy

     @GroupNebula563 @joynewacc @palestine @mutualaid Thank you 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Jake Rayson (natureworks@mas.to)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 04:44:56 JST Jake Rayson

     in reply to

     @aral thank you so much for doing this 🙏

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 04:44:56 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Jake Rayson

     @natureworks You’re very welcome, Jake. Fingers crossed, we’re going get all the families on Gaza Verified to safety 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 04:47:12 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc We’re $59 away from raising $10,000 out of our goal of $15,000.

     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

     I’m seriously starting to think we might just hit our goal tonight which would be amazing as our Palestinian families can start making arrangements to move South as soon as possible. (Every night spent under Israel’s bombardment in the North is a potential death sentence.)

     I really can’t thank you all for your support. You’re really turning up for this and I’m eternally grateful.

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 04:50:34 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc It seems I can’t update you all fast enough :)

     Just as I send the last post, we passed the $10,000 mark.

     We’re now more than two thirds towards our goal!

     Thank you so much!

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 05:35:40 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • gomli

     @gomli Thank you so much 💕

   • Embed this notice
     gomli (gomli@piaille.fr)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 05:35:41 JST gomli

     in reply to

     1/2 : traduction française du message d' @aral

     Bonjour à tous,

     Je viens de lancer la campagne "appel d'urgence" sur Gaza Verified.

     Cela permettra de mettre en sécurité les 8 familles qui se trouvent encore au nord dans la zone critique pour aller vers le sud, où la situation est plus sûre.

     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

     Sur la base des conversations que @joynewacc et moi-même avons eues avec ces familles pour déterminer leurs besoins (transport, terrain, tentes), nous avons fixé l'objectif de la campagne à 15 000 dollars.

     Pour lancer le mouvement, j'ai fait un don personnel de 1 000 dollars.

     Aral Balkan repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Andreas (andreasio@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 05:38:09 JST Andreas

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc i have donated a tiny tiny bit. It's interesting that I in general find these campaign difficult to trust. But i have followed you for years, and for lack of a better word, you have a 'brand" I trust. So good on you for making a real difference for these families.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 05:38:09 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Andreas
     • Joy

     @andreasio @joynewacc Thank you so much, Andreas?

     Also about the brand: sounds painful. How do I cure this affliction? 😛

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 05:38:17 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy
     • T.Ramos 🏳️‍🌈

     @tramos @joynewacc Thank you so much, it means the world! 💕

   • Embed this notice
     T.Ramos 🏳️‍🌈 (tramos@ciberlandia.pt)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 05:38:18 JST T.Ramos 🏳️‍🌈

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral
     This month I'm a bit streched but donated what I can. Great work!
     @joynewacc

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 05:42:36 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc 🥳 We’re 80% to our goal!

     I’m never going to tire of saying this but you are all amazing. Thank you!

     I really think we’re going to hit our goal in the next few hours.

     You can watch the progress live at:
     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

     (Updates stream in, no need to refresh the page.)

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 05:43:41 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Daniel Neuman
     • Joy

     @remaster @joynewacc They will be, Daniel, and we have no intention of leaving them to fend for themselves after this drive is completed either :)

     And thank you so much 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Daniel Neuman (remaster@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 05:43:42 JST Daniel Neuman

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc Good! I hope our donations are enough to get them safe.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 06:08:45 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc Folks, we’ve got $2,804 left to go to hit our goal of $15,000.

     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

     I’m going to try and stay up another two hours before I collapse and I have a feeling might just hit our goal before I do.

     And if not, hopefully by the morning at which point Joy will have Internet access again and we will start distributing the funds to the individual fundraisers of the eight families.

     Thank you so much again for the amazing you’ve shown us and our Palestinian friends.

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 06:32:23 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Kate Bowles
     • Joy

     @kate @joynewacc Thank you so much, Kate! :)

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     Kate Bowles (kate@aus.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 06:32:24 JST Kate Bowles

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc Thanks to you both. Done.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 06:34:04 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • nabnux
     • Joy
     • Regendans

     @regendans @nabnux @joynewacc :)

   • Embed this notice
     Regendans (regendans@todon.eu)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 06:34:06 JST Regendans

     in reply to

     • nabnux
     • Joy

     @nabnux @aral @joynewacc Over 11K now! OMG, It feels like I'm a witness of a historic day. 🍉

   • Embed this notice
     nabnux (nabnux@piaille.fr)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 06:34:07 JST nabnux

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc just donated. it's over 10k$ now. thank YOU for setting this up.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 06:34:28 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • nabnux
     • Joy

     @nabnux @joynewacc Thank you so much, I really appreciate your support. 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 07:12:36 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc We’re almost at 90% of our goal!

     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

     We’ve got just $1,644 left to raise from our goal of $15,000.

     And, thanks to you, we’ve gotten to this point in mere hours tonight.

     It’s so lovely to see the happy messages in our Signal group from the families who are watching the progress. (One of the things I’m happy about is that we’re getting folks on Signal and, eventually, hopefully, away from WhatApp. Also the group is providing a space where the families can help each other locally.)

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 07:31:43 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc So there’s about half an hour left before midnight here when I go to sleep for the night (I need to be up early and functional tomorrow as we will be transferring the funds raised to the individual families’ fundraisers) and we’re at 89%.

     Can we get it to 90% or maybe even above so I can go to sleep in hopes that we will have hit our goal by the time I get up?

     gaza-verified.org/emergency/

     (While I’m sleeping, if you all want to help me promote the emergency appeal, I will gladly welcome the help.)

     And, once again, thank you so much for getting us to this point in mere hours tonight.

     You are literally helping to save lives and I can’t express how thankful I am to have your support.

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 07:35:29 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc And, of course, just as I send that post… 🎉 We hit 90% 🎉

     We’ve got just $1,384 left to raise to hit our goal of $15,000 for the Gaza Verified Emergency Appeal so we can get eight families out of immediate danger in the North to relative safety in the South.

     I don’t know if we’ll hit our goal in the next half hour while I’m still awake but I am confident we will before morning when Joy is awake and online and we can start distributing the funds to the families.

     You can follow the progress with streaming updates here (no need to refresh the page):

     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

     Thank you so very much!

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 07:52:46 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Nizar Kerkeni 🇹🇳 نزار القرقني
     • Joy

     @nizarus @joynewacc 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Nizar Kerkeni 🇹🇳 نزار القرقني (nizarus@mastodon.tn)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 07:52:48 JST Nizar Kerkeni 🇹🇳 نزار القرقني

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc 👏👏👏
     ✌️🇵🇸✌️🇵🇸✌️

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 08:03:19 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • buffy leigh (she/they)

     @buffyleigh You’re very welcome but all the thanks I need is hopefully knowing that these families are safe one day. So here’s to that. And to being here for them together on this most difficult journey they’ve been forced to undertake.

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     buffy leigh (she/they) (buffyleigh@mas.to)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 08:03:20 JST buffy leigh (she/they)

     in reply to

     @aral What a beautiful thing to see, when I last logged on it was around 10%. :blobaww: Thank you for doing this. 🙏🏻

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 08:17:24 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc Well folks, it’s midnight here so it’s going to be good night from me.

     In just six hours, you’ve managed to take us to 91% of our goal.

     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

     Words can’t express my gratitude. Thank you!

     We have just $1,209 left until we reach our goal for of $15,000 for the eight families in this emergency campaign.

     Something tells me we might just reach it while I’m getting my eight hours (so I can be functional tomorrow morning when Joy wakes up and has Internet access so we can coordinate and distribute the raised funds to the families).

     If we manage to go beyond our goal, we will distribute the additional funds to help the other Gaza Verified families, including a couple that were offline and so couldn’t respond to us in time for this campaign who we just learned are still stuck in the North.

     As I just promised all the families in our Signal group just now: We are all one big family here and we will leave no family behind.

     Good night to you all and I hope I’ll wake up and be able to give our families the good news.

     I leave the campaign in your capable hands. Please take over from where I left off and let’s make this happen so we can get our families to safety in the South.

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 17:22:43 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     🥳 Wow! I wake up and what do I see: We’ve shot past our goal!

     As I was sleeping you all managed to get the amount we’ve raised for our families still stuck in the North to $16,095

     I have no words: Thank you all so, so much for your support!

     I was able to withdraw the equivalent of €7,500 ($8,768.79) of that amount instantly from Stripe today (and can apparently withdraw that much per day from our Stripe account via their instant payments) so we will transfer that amounts to the families most in need today and continue distributing the funds tomorrow.

     I’m going to keep the fundraiser running for the moment and we will distribute any additional funds raised to help the other Gaza Verified families, including a couple that were offline and so couldn’t respond to us in time for this campaign who we learned last night are still stuck in the North.

     I promised everyone in our Signal group last night that we will leave no family behind and I intend to keep that promise to them.

     I’m going to go coordinate with @joynewacc now so we can start payouts and I’ll update you about the status of our families as we go.

     Please do keep sharing the campaign so we have as much in the pot as possible to work with.

     Thank you all again – you’re doing the fediverse and humanity proud.

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 20:56:10 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Pieter
     • Joy

     @platenworm @joynewacc 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Pieter (platenworm@mastodon.nl)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 20:56:12 JST Pieter

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc ❤️

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 20:56:47 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • nevermore
     • Joy

     @yuril @joynewacc Thank you so much 💕

   • Embed this notice
     nevermore (yuril@fedibird.com)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 20:56:48 JST nevermore

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc I can see it's only $139 to go after I posted mine. Great job guys!

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 20:56:50 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • don Elías (como los buses) 🥨
     • Joy

     @donelias @joynewacc Thanks so much, Don, really appreciate it 💕

   • Embed this notice
     don Elías (como los buses) 🥨 (donelias@mastodon.cr)'s status on Sunday, 21-Sep-2025 20:56:52 JST don Elías (como los buses) 🥨

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc donated a bit, thanks for helping us help

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 01:45:36 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy
     • Shatha Mohammed
     • Baraa Elmoghrabi 🍉
     • Yasmeengaza
     • Khaled Zeyada

     Hi everyone, a quick impact report to you at the end of the first 24 hours of our Gaza Verified Emergency Appeal:

     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

     We’ve raised: $16,975 out of our original goal of $15,000.

     Today, I was able to do an instant withdrawal of €7,500 of that ($8,768.79) from Stripe.

     This morning, @joynewacc and I had the difficult task of prioritising today’s payouts from that amount. Our criteria were:

     • Who’s most at risk (e.g., in Al-Shifa camp, etc.)?
     • How can we help the largest number of our families with what we have on hand today?

     As such, I’ve just completed payments to six of our families:

     • @baraaelmoghrabi: $2,000 (she in one of the most dangerous places (al-Shifa camp) and this will allow her to move South tomorrow. She will not have enough to rent a tent yet but she said they could stay in a school until we can get the rest of the money to her, which we will as soon as possible.

     • @mittal@toot.community: $2,000 to get a tent in the South (they are homeless right now).

     • @shathamohammed123: $1,200 to move to the South.

     • @doaagaza: $1,500 to move to the South.

     • @bilal_mo: $1,500 to move his family to the South. He still needs $1,500 for a tent but he can house them with relatives for three days. We will get him the rest in time.

     • @ghassangaza: $1,200 as she is about to be evicted. She borrowed $2,000 from a lender for a tent. We were able to negotiate with the lender. He will accept $1,200 and the remaining $800 later.

     That brings the total we distributed today to $9,400. I covered the difference (~$630) temporarily from our account since time is of the essence.

     We will get to everyone else tomorrow when I can withdraw from the Stripe pot again.

     I also plan to update the site with the impact reports as we go.

     Finally, as we are getting more details from some of the families and the ones we couldn’t contact due to Internet issues on the ground, the current estimate for how much we will need in the immediate future has shot up to $20,000.

     So I’ve set the goal to that and we will continue the fundraiser.

     Thank you again for your amazing support.

     You are making an immediate difference in the lives of our Gaza Verified families.

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 01:53:37 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Kotaro
     • Joy

     @kotaro @joynewacc We’re trying :) 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Kotaro (kotaro@kotaro.me)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 01:53:38 JST Kotaro

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc Please take care of everyone. 🙏

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 01:58:03 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy
     • Oliwier Jaszczyszyn

     @oaj @joynewacc You’re too kind, Oliwier. Thank you so much for your support.

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     Oliwier Jaszczyszyn (oaj@mastodon.com.pl)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 01:58:05 JST Oliwier Jaszczyszyn

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc: I am so proud of both of you. Aral, for tackling technical hurdles, and Joy, for helping out people even in the face of impending genocide.

     You should be proud of what you've done. Words cannot express how immensely I respect you.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 01:59:02 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Misha
     • Joy

     @MishaVelthuis @joynewacc Thank you for your support. We’re doing this together. 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Misha (mishavelthuis@social.edu.nl)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 01:59:04 JST Misha

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc Thank you for doing this. And thank you for showing the power of the Fediverse.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 02:01:10 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • matclab
     • Joy

     @matclab @joynewacc You’re very welcome. Thank you for your support 💕

   • Embed this notice
     matclab (matclab@mamot.fr)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 02:01:11 JST matclab

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc thank you for this initiative! ❤️

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 02:01:26 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • 🏰Christophe S.❄IceEnchanter🦢
     • Joy

     @r3vlibre @joynewacc Thank you! 💕

     I published an impact report here:
     https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/115243292568435455

     We’re going to raise the goal and continue the campaign as we learn more about the needs of the families.

   • Embed this notice
     🏰Christophe S.❄IceEnchanter🦢 (r3vlibre@mastodon.tetaneutral.net)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 02:01:27 JST 🏰Christophe S.❄IceEnchanter🦢

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral
     @joynewacc It happened :) The goal was reached during the night, even a bit beyond <3 Your rest was well deserved and landed its promise.

     Now, I wish all these families, and all others too, strength and good winds to get to a safe place for them.

     You found a good way to leverage strength, it made it :)

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 03:07:01 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Sarah W
     • Joy

     @Sarahw @joynewacc Thank you 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Sarah W (sarahw@mastodon.green)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 03:07:03 JST Sarah W

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc
     This is great news

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 03:09:48 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • sara
     • Joy
     • Shatha Mohammed
     • Baraa Elmoghrabi 🍉
     • Yasmeengaza
     • Khaled Zeyada

     @sagilca @joynewacc @baraaelmoghrabi @shathamohammed123 @doaagaza @bilal_mo @ghassangaza Thank you so much for your support, Sara 💕

   • Embed this notice
     sara (sagilca@mastodon.green)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 03:09:49 JST sara

     in reply to

     • Joy
     • Shatha Mohammed
     • Baraa Elmoghrabi 🍉
     • Yasmeengaza
     • Khaled Zeyada

     @aral @joynewacc @baraaelmoghrabi @shathamohammed123 @doaagaza @bilal_mo @ghassangaza Thank you so much for the amazing work :ablobcatheart:

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 03:12:17 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Oliwier Jaszczyszyn

     @oaj Will do Oliwier. Might have to be tomorrow. Trying to wind down for the evening so I can get back into things in the morning :)

   • Embed this notice
     Oliwier Jaszczyszyn (oaj@mastodon.com.pl)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 03:12:18 JST Oliwier Jaszczyszyn

     in reply to

     @aral: thank you! Also, can you please look at your e-mail inbox? I have sent you an interview request through it.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 03:23:56 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Ciara
     • Joy

     @CiaraNi @joynewacc 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Ciara (ciarani@mastodon.green)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 03:23:58 JST Ciara

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc Thank you, Joy and Aral 💚

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 06:23:35 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Matt Noyes
     • Joy
     • Shatha Mohammed
     • Baraa Elmoghrabi 🍉
     • Yasmeengaza
     • Khaled Zeyada
     • Mitqal

     @Matt_Noyes @joynewacc @baraaelmoghrabi @shathamohammed123 @doaagaza @bilal_mo @ghassangaza @mittall Thank you 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Matt Noyes (matt_noyes@social.coop)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 06:23:36 JST Matt Noyes

     in reply to

     • Joy
     • Shatha Mohammed
     • Baraa Elmoghrabi 🍉
     • Yasmeengaza
     • Khaled Zeyada
     • Mitqal

     @aral @joynewacc @baraaelmoghrabi @shathamohammed123 @doaagaza @bilal_mo @ghassangaza @mittall excellent report, such a good model of mutual aid and transparency

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 06:39:27 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc G’night, everyone! :)

     I’m off to bed at a regular time tonight after a full few days so I can be back at it tomorrow, distributing the Gaza Verified Emergency Appeal funds and scheduling new verification video chats.

     So lovely to see that we’ve passed $18,000 on our way to our new goal of $20,000 which includes support for two other families who we’ve recently been able to reach again after the Internet outages as well as additional costs that are being communicated to us piecemeal at times.

     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

     I, once again, leave the campaign in your capable hands as I head to bed.

     On behalf of our families in Gaza, thank you!

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 19:06:34 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • gomli

     @gomli Thank you so much for translating the posts. You’re wonderful 💕

   • Embed this notice
     gomli (gomli@piaille.fr)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 19:07:41 JST gomli

     in reply to

     2/2

     Ces familles vivent dans la terreur sous les bombardements nocturnes d'Israël. Si vous le pouvez, aidez-les à survivre au génocide perpétré par Israël. Et partagez cette information autant que possible.

     Merci !

     PS. Les dons sont collectés par notre association Small Technology Foundation, et la totalité de la somme, moins les frais de Stripe, sera transférée aux collectes de fonds individuelles des familles. Nous avons suspendu notre propre collecte pendant la durée de l'appel d'urgence (https://small-tech.org/fund-us/).

     PS. Si vous laissez la page de la campagne ouverte, vous verrez la jauge de progression se mettre à jour et les dons arriver en temps réel.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 19:55:16 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Paula Gordon
     • Joy

     @dbaplanb @joynewacc Thank you so much for your love and support, Paula.

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     Paula Gordon (dbaplanb@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 19:55:17 JST Paula Gordon

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc
     I appreciate being able to donate to a general fund and letting you make the decisions of how to allocate based on need and urgency. Thank you for your focus and persistence and hope. 💗

     Gaza Verified Emergency Appeal:
     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid
     [edit to add hashtags]

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 20:13:51 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc Thank you all so much, we’ve shot past our $20,000 goal!

     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

     Please keep sharing the campaign and supporting so as we built a pot that all the families can benefit from.

     I will be making today’s list of families that we will be distributing funds to, making the payments, and updating you with an impact report for today this afternoon.

     You are literally saving lives.

     Thank you

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 21:49:39 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy
     • usama

     @usama971 Hi Usama,

     @joynewacc and I would love to have a quick video chat with you on Signal Messenger sometime this week to welcome you to the Gaza Verified family.

     Please see our guide on how our group works and how to download Signal Messenger and reach us (my account is aral.42):

     https://gaza-verified.org/guide-arabic/

     Thank you and all my love and solidarity to you and your family.

     💕

     #GazaVerified #GazaVerifiedOutreach

   • Embed this notice
     usama (usama971@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 22-Sep-2025 21:49:40 JST usama

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc I hope u can help me to verified my account..

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 23-Sep-2025 04:51:24 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Dr.Abd RASMI
     • Joy
     • Dr.Nadeen
     • Abeer Ehab(om zeyad)🍉
     • Salem Thabet
     • A S E E L
     • Yasmeengaza
     • ahmedosama
     • Mitqal

     @joynewacc Hi everyone, here’s a quick impact report to you at the end of the second 24 hours of our Gaza Verified Emergency Appeal:

     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

     You can find the first day’s report here:
     https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/115243292568435455

     We’ve raised $21,354.30 out of our revised goal of $20,000.

     Thank you all so much for your continued support!

     Today, I was able to withdraw another €7,500 from our Stripe account. Yesterday, since I’d temporarily used €547.65 of our own money, I reduced the amount by that much today, giving us €6,952.35. Using our Wise account we were able to convert that to $8,152.03 USD.

     We also received a donation in Ethereum from an anonymous donor last night that I was able to convert to ~$600 USD today (there is still ~€60 worth of the ETH from the donation in the Kraken account). Adding this on gave us $8,752.03 to work with.

     With that, Joy and I came up with a distribution plan to get funds to those in most need and to the largest number of families possible.

     As such, today’s payments went to:

     • @ahmedosama: $600 for a tent.

     • @doaagaza: $1,000 for a tent (we’d paid for her transportation yesterday; the tent cost was communicated to us later).

     • @abeerabed22: $3,000 for transportation South, tent, and land.

     • @mittall: $500 for land (we’d paid him for a tent yesterday; the land cost which was communicated to us later).

     • @Abdullahawwad: $1,000 for evacuation South. Abdullah needs $2,000 in total to evacuate but PayPal only allowed me to transfer $1,000. This is a daily limit I’ve hit before while trying to donate. I will transfer the remaining $1,000 tomorrow.

     • @aseelfromgz: $1,035.51 remaining on amounts raised earlier for evacuation South. (The $35.51 is for PayPal so she gets exactly $1,000. Well, she’ll get ~60% of that when the local money sharks in Gaza take their 40% but we factor this into things.)

     • @Salem_family: $1,000.00 for a tent in the South. (I’m trying to keep everything in USD since that’s what everyone uses in Gaza but I had to make this donation in Euros as the Dutch fundraising site steunactie.nl does not offer a USD option. This came out of our own funds in our Euro account so I will be taking that amount out of tomorrow’s Stripe withdrawal. It also means that our USD account, which is solely being used for Gaza Verified donations, still has $605.85 USD in it, which will be used in tomorrow’s distribution.)

     • @Dr_Nadeen98: $1,000 to purchase/build sanitation for their place in the South (realised later that commission costs were *not* factored into this so we will find out how much more is necessary and cover it this week, hopefully. Also, Nadeen needs funds this week in order to pay his university tuition so she can graduate as a dentist in a year’s time. I’m waiting for the amount of the tuition so we can hopefully help with that too.)

     There are a couple of challenges I’m encountering while making donations and if there are people from these companies on here who can raise the issues internally or get in touch with us to make things easier, I would appreciate it:

     1. PayPal: $1,000 daily limit when paying by credit card.

     2. GoFundMe will not allow me to pay in USD unless I use my VPN and pretend I’m in the US. Today, one of the pages showed me a 502 Bad Gateway error which I suspect was the US node on my VPN getting flagged. I tried a node in a different city and it worked. I’m worried this might become an issue in the future.

     3. Some Chuffed campaigns only accept PayPal. See problem 1.

     4. Stripe is working great for us but I can only withdraw €7,500 a day. That said, I’m thankful there’s an instant payout option.

     In total, we distributed $9,100 dollars to 8 families today and that will get them three tents, land, sanitation, and one full evacuation (transport, land, and tent). The total number of families we’re helping with this emergency appeal is now more than 8 but I haven’t had time to update the site because of all the other work I have to do. We also have two families we cannot reach at the moment who are in the North and yes, we’re really worried.

     I’m going to keep the fundraiser going, so please do share it with your friends and help if you can. It’s a rapidly evolving situation and the more we have in the pot, the better.

     Hopefully when we hear back from the two families we can’t reach, I can update the target amount accordingly. Eventually, I hope we can evolve this into an ongoing effort that meets the survival needs of all our Gaza Verified families.

     We also had a donor who wishes to remain anonymous and pay by bank transfer begin a transfer for £5,000 today so I will update the amount on the site manually when that comes in (thank you so, so much, dear anonymous donor) :)

     Thank you all again for making this possible and for showing our Palestinian families that you stand with them in their darkest hour.

     I am so proud of all of you!

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Andreas (solarkater@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 23-Sep-2025 05:12:49 JST Andreas

     in reply to

     @aral
     OK - done.. spent some 50 USD - thanks for the financial overview: showed me a more (or less) convincing
     argument in favor
     only via credit cards ? wire transfers perhaps too expensive ?
     I remember trying a wire transfer for some medical devices during covid to some kurdish organisation:
     some German authority blocked this transfer
     perhaps for this reason ? so, anyway I payed by credit card (which surely will track and will forward the info to every state authority interested - be it so ;)

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 23-Sep-2025 05:12:49 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Andreas

     @solarkater Thank you for your support, Andreas.

     Sadly, many banks won’t do transfers to Palestine. I know ours doesn’t (tested it).

     So this is the best way of getting funds to them that I know of at the moment.

     If anyone knows of any better ways that have been tried and tested, I am all ears :)

     Thanks again for helping our families in Gaza.

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 23-Sep-2025 05:47:22 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Dr.Abd RASMI
     • Joy
     • Dr.Nadeen
     • Abeer Ehab(om zeyad)🍉
     • Salem Thabet
     • A S E E L
     • Yasmeengaza
     • ahmedosama
     • Mitqal

     @aseelfromgz @joynewacc @ahmedosama @doaagaza @abeerabed22 @mittall @Abdullahawwad @Salem_family @Dr_Nadeen98 > I also thank Joy for her constant efforts—she’s an example of a strong Palestinian woman.

     As are you, Aseel.

     And I am truly honoured to know the both of you as well as all our other families. I wish different circumstances had brought you all into my life but I’m grateful that you are here.

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     A S E E L (aseelfromgz@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 23-Sep-2025 05:47:23 JST A S E E L

     in reply to

     • Dr.Abd RASMI
     • Joy
     • Dr.Nadeen
     • Abeer Ehab(om zeyad)🍉
     • Salem Thabet
     • Yasmeengaza
     • ahmedosama
     • Mitqal

     @aral @joynewacc @ahmedosama @doaagaza @abeerabed22 @mittall @Abdullahawwad @Salem_family @Dr_Nadeen98 Aral, I’m honestly the worst at expressing myself and saying thanks,
     but you truly deserve it.
     You give us a chance to live.
     You heard us and believed in us despite everything.
     You’re truly a good person and deserve the best.
     I really love your heart.
     I also thank Joy for her constant efforts—she’s an example of a strong Palestinian woman.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 24-Sep-2025 01:31:03 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy
     • Mohammed Shobair from Gaza 🍉
     • SakherGaza1
     • Khaled Zeyada
     • Reem_in_gaza

     Hi everyone, I’m just filing our impact report for the third day of the Gaza Verified Emergency Appeal.

     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

     After being able to instantly withdraw the maximum €7,500 on the first and second days, today I was able to withdraw the remaining €2,516.33 (initially €1,915.54 this morning and then, as more donations came in, another €600.79). Wise converted that to $3,561.96. So that’s what we had to work with.

     Here’s how we distributed it:

     • @bilal_mo: The remaining $1,500 he needs to get his family to the South (total donated: $3,000).

     • @ghassangaza: The remaining $800 she needs to avoid being evicted after borrowing $2,000 from a lender for a tent (total donated: $2000)

     • @mohshbair: First installment of $1,000 on the $3,000 he needs to move South so he can start making preparations.

     In total, to date, we have distributed $19335.51.

     The only costs we have are currency conversions which we get hit by when the money comes in in EUR to Stripe so we can instantly withdraw it and, again, when converting it to USD in Wise before making the payments so we can keep our accounting straight as all numbers are communicated to us in USD. We also paid ~$35.51 in PayPal fees for one payment.

     (Of course the folks in Gaza are scalped 40% commission – I will not swear, I will not swear… – when withdrawing their money but we ask them to factor that into the amounts they need.)

     Right now have drained the main donations EUR account on Stripe. There is €24.16 in there. There is also a USD account in Stripe that I created thinking we would save on currency conversion fees but realised quickly that I couldn’t instantly withdraw from that like I can with our EUR account (Stripe rule about it only working with the primary currency or something). Anyway, by the time I disabled that account, it had already accrued $455.50 in donations. Stripe tells me that will be transferred to us by Thursday (25th).

     Beyond that we have $256.55 left in the USD account in Wise.

     We also temporarily used €850 of the foundation’s money to make the payment to Salem yesterday as the Dutch fundraiser site didn’t accept dollars. I was going to take that our of today’s donations but I will wait until there is more money in the account as I wanted us to be able to reach as many people as possible again today.

     We were also able to reach @reem_osama via @Sakhergaza13, her fiancé. She needs $3,000 to move South so we’ve added on to the remaining amounts and it looks like we still need $7,600 to get all the current families home. (We are helping 14 families with the move at the moment, not just the original 8, as we weren’t able to get in touch with everyone at the start and I still haven’t had time from everything else to update the site properly with the new information).

     And, we are expecting a bank transfer for £5,000 to arrive soon. That’s roughly $6,750. That will go a long way towards covering the remaining expenses but I don’t know when it will arrive exactly (it’s an international transfer).

     So I’ve just raised our goal to $30,000 and I hope you will continue to share the campaign and to support us so we can get our remaining families to the finishing line.

     Finally, there are a number of people from Gaza waiting for @joynewacc and me to schedule verification video chats with them. I’m sorry to keep you waiting, I’ve been busy with this and related tasks. I will get to that next.

     As always, thank you for your support.

     None of this would be possible without you.

     Sending you all lots of love.

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 24-Sep-2025 19:45:18 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     Hey everyone,

     I finally managed to find a few moments to update the Gaza Verified Emergency Appeal site to better reflect the current state of the campaign (and to fix a couple of little niggles and improve my admin page):

     https://gaza-verified/emergency/

     By my records, we are now helping sixteen of our families – up from eight when we launch it over the weekend – with various aspects of moving out from under Israel’s bombs in the North to the relative safety of the South. For some, this includes getting them the money for transportation, land, and a tent and for some it’s a subset of those (e.g., some have already moved South but urgently need land or a tent.)

     We’re also at a point right now where we are distributing all donated funds every day.

     (And we could use a bit more today, if possible.) :)

     I will update the financials for today once I’ve had a chance to get to that. (Right now, I have to pop home to cook lunch as it’s my turn to do so) :)

     After lunch, @joynewacc and I have four verification video chats to make to hopefully welcome four new families to Gaza Verified. (We also have two already lined up for tomorrow and room for two more.

     After that, I will update the financials, withdraw today’s monies, come up with a distribution plan for today with Joy, and make today’s payments.

     Finally, I’m going to write up and publish our impact report for today (the first three day’s impact reports are linked to from the site now).

     Thank you all for your continuing support.

     Your donations are having an immediate impact in the lives of our families.

     You are helping save lives.

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 24-Sep-2025 21:42:53 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy
     • Oliwier Jaszczyszyn

     @oaj @joynewacc Thanks for the heads up. I’m bit of a headless chicken recently :)

   • Embed this notice
     Oliwier Jaszczyszyn (oaj@mastodon.com.pl)'s status on Wednesday, 24-Sep-2025 21:42:54 JST Oliwier Jaszczyszyn

     in reply to

     • Joy

     Hey @aral, heads up -- the link to Gaza Verified says https://gaza-verified/emergency/ while the domain should say gaza-verified.org.

     @joynewacc

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 25-Sep-2025 00:18:49 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc Hey everyone, I’m going to withdraw the available funds from the appeal to plan and carry out today’s distribution in ~fifteen minutes (at 16:30 Irish Time).

     If there are any last minute donations you can get in before then, they will go towards today’s payments to our families.

     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency

     The £5K donation we were waiting for also arrived in our bank account today and since that doesn’t count towards Stripe’s daily withdrawal limit, I should be able to withdraw all the remaining funds there today (currently €1,400.21). So any donations between now and the next ~fifteen minutes from now will be added to that and withdrawn for use today.

     I think with the amount we have for today, we should be able to make very good progress towards everyone’s goals.

     Thank you.

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 25-Sep-2025 04:01:53 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Dr.Abd RASMI
     • Joy
     • Shatha Mohammed
     • SakherGaza1
     • Baraa Elmoghrabi 🍉
     • Eman 🍉
     • Reem_in_gaza
     • Andreas 🔻

     @Anawan @joynewacc @shathamohammed123 @baraaelmoghrabi @Abdullahawwad @emanahmed @reem_osama @Sakhergaza13 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Andreas 🔻 (anawan@mas.to)'s status on Thursday, 25-Sep-2025 04:01:54 JST Andreas 🔻

     in reply to

     • Dr.Abd RASMI
     • Joy
     • Shatha Mohammed
     • SakherGaza1
     • Baraa Elmoghrabi 🍉
     • Eman 🍉
     • Reem_in_gaza

     @aral @joynewacc @shathamohammed123 @baraaelmoghrabi @Abdullahawwad @emanahmed @reem_osama @Sakhergaza13 Thank you for putting in the effort of organising the fundraiser, maintaining contact and distributing the money!

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 25-Sep-2025 04:01:55 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Dr.Abd RASMI
     • Joy
     • Shatha Mohammed
     • SakherGaza1
     • Baraa Elmoghrabi 🍉
     • Eman 🍉
     • Reem_in_gaza

     @joynewacc Hey everyone, here’s my Gaza Verified Emergency Appeal (https://gaza-verified.org/emergency) Impact Report for Day 4:

     Today the £5,000 donation we were waiting for by bank transfer came in (thank you so much, anonymous donor) :)

     From this, I took the €850 we had used of our own funds (see https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/115254558184817053) to pay for Salem’s tent in Euros back into the foundation’s Euro account. The remaining amount was converted by Wise and added to the USD account and came to $5,712.62.

     We also had 256.55 in the USD pot from yesterday from unspent donations. (I saw that two of our foundation payments, for $4.99 and $25 came out of the USD pot so I converted enough EUR from our foundation’s main balance to put that back in.)

     I also withdrew the entire EUR pot in our Stripe account, which came to €1,386.94 and was converted in Wise to $1,622.42.

     So the combination of these amounts ($5,712.62 + $256.55 + $1,622.42) gave us a total of $7,591.59 to distribute today.

     And this is how we distributed it:

     • @shathamohammed123: We thought Shatha had asked for $1,200 for the tent but she thought she was asking for €1,200 because her fundraiser is in EUR. Anyway, we paid her $1,200 yesterday. I made a payment for €200 temporarily from our own funds to top up what we had to spend today so more families could be paid. Paying in Euros also meant no currency conversion fees. I will replace this amount from future donations. (Total paid: ~€1,200.)

     • @baraaelmoghrabi: The remaining $2,400 to cover cost of tent and land after earlier payment of $2,000 to cover transportation South. I only recently learned that Baraa’s family is actually four families and about 20 people. (Total paid: $4,400.)

     • @Abdullahawwad: The remaining $1,000 for his evacuation South after the same amount earlier. I wanted to complete this payment yesterday but PayPal limited my card. They were able to enable credit/debit cards on Abdullah’s fundraiser and I was able to made the additional payment today. (Total paid: $2,000.)

     • @emanahmed: Eman and her family of 8 were facing eviction after being displaced South. We paid her $1,300 today to cover rent and essential renovations on the house.

     • @reem_osama Reem was stuck in one of the worst parts of the North and on the streets with her family. She is @Sakhergaza13’s fiancee and neither he nor I could reach her earlier. Once we got word she was all right and what she and her family needed (for transport, land, and shelter) we sent her the full amount of $3,000 to get them out as soon as possible. Tomorrow is her birthday. We hope that she can spend it with Sakher in the South tomorrow or at least very soon after.

     The total payouts today came to $7,700 USD + €200. (I topped up the USD amount with $108.41 from the foundation’s own money temporarily so we could make the payments. We will return that to the foundation in the coming days as more donations come in.)

     In the last four days, we’ve distributed $29,770.42 to sixteen families in Gaza.

     At this point, it looks like we have $2,600 more to raise and pay out so Ahmed Osama’s family can get some land for the their tent and $2,000 left to give to Mohammed so he can evacuate South.

     We also have new members coming – some of whom are trapped in the North – and, as people get South, they might have new expenses.

     So I’ve raised our goal to $35,000 and we will continue the campaign.

     And I will introduce you to our new members soon.

     Thank you all again for your tremendous support.

     You are saving the lives of whole families in Gaza and I love you for it.

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid #GazaVerifiedImpactReport

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 25-Sep-2025 04:27:47 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Mohammed Shobair from Gaza 🍉

     @mohshbair 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Mohammed Shobair from Gaza 🍉 (mohshbair@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 25-Sep-2025 04:27:48 JST Mohammed Shobair from Gaza 🍉

     in reply to

     Thank you so much @aral. The situation is very difficult, but you’re making it a little bit easier. This will save our lives. I’m immensely thankful. 🤍🌹
     Looking forward to tomorrow.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 26-Sep-2025 00:54:49 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc Hey everyone,

     An update on the Gaza Verified Emergency Appeal to get our families stuck in the danger zone in the North of Gaza to relative safety in the South.

     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

     We’re at 92% of our revised goal of raising $35,000, with $32,313 raised in the last four days, with $29,770.42 of that already distributed to sixteen families.

     From our original list, we still have Ahmed Osama, who needs $600 for land to complete putting up his tent and Mohammed still needs $2,000 to evacuate to the South.

     (See yesterday’s impact report: https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/115260771174660351)

     I’d love to be able to distribute both of these funds today.

     Looking at what’s in the pot today:

     What we have: $2,206.87
     What we need: $2,600.00

     So we still need to raise $393.13 so we can send payments to Ahmed and Mohammed today.

     Can we make this happen in the next few hours?

     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

     Thank you so much for sharing this and helping out if you can!

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 26-Sep-2025 04:15:42 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy
     • Mohammed Shobair from Gaza 🍉
     • ahmedosama

     @joynewacc Hi all,

     Here’s today’s Gaza Verified Emergency Appeal Impact Report for Day 5:

     Today, the $455.50 we had in the USD pot in Stripe that we were waiting for finally got transferred to our bank account.

     To add to that, we got a $500 donation via bank transfer.

     This morning, I withdrew €951.63 from the Stripe donation pot, clearing it. That got converted to $1,108.09.

     Since the amount wasn’t enough for the two payments I wanted to make, I pushed the campaign a bit and you all responded like the absolute gems you are and I managed to withdraw another €794.51 from the pot. From this amount, I took the €200 we’d lent to yesterday’s payments from our own funds, bringing the total to €594.51. This got converted to $691.15.

     So the total we had in the USD pot at the end of this was: $455.50 + $500 + $1,108.09 + $691.15 = $2,754.74.

     From this, I also deducted the USD amount ($108.41) we had temporarily lent from our own funds yesterday so we could make the payments.

     This left us with $2,646.33 to distribute today to:

     • @ahmedosama: $600 for land, in addition to the $600 for a tent we had sent earlier.
     • @mohshbair: $2,000 for the remainder of transportation, land, and tent so they can evacuate South.

     And, with that, we have paid out all the amounts that everyone in our 16 families had told us they needed from the start of the campaign on Saturday.

     We currently have $46.33 left in our USD bank account.

     I just checked Stripe and with new donations that have come in since my last withdrawal, we have €891.47 in there.

     And the state of the campaign in general right now is that we have raised $34,233 out of our revised goal of $35,000 in the last five days and we have distributed $32370.42 to our 16 families to help them escape the bombs in the North to relative safety in the South.

     This feels like a milestone.

     We added four new families to Gaza Verified today and at least three of them are either trapped in the North or have family that is. I’m asking them for their needs now.

     I’m leaving the goal at $35,000 for the moment but, as always, the more we have in the pot, the better we can respond the needs of our families so please keep sharing and helping out if you can.

     Once we have the latest list of needs from our new families (and perhaps additional ones from our current ones), Joy and I will come up with a plan for evolving the campaign and the site. I am thinking we might archive the current week and start on a new week, again with singular focus on our families that need the most help in surviving Israel’s genocide in the here and now.

     Words cannot express how much I love you all for stepping up and showing your love and solidarity for our families in Gaza and for welcoming them so warmly and with such humanity to the fediverse.

     Thank you.

     You give me hope.

     💕

     #GazaVerified #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppealImpactReport #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 26-Sep-2025 15:26:41 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Marcus Richter

     @monoxyd Thank you so much for your support 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Marcus Richter (monoxyd@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Sep-2025 15:26:42 JST Marcus Richter

     in reply to

     @aral Thank you for all you‘re doing!

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Saturday, 27-Sep-2025 04:10:42 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy
     • Mohammed Shobair from Gaza 🍉
     • ahmedosama

     @joynewacc @ahmedosama @mohshbair Hi everyone,

     Most of today was spent dealing with new member verification interviews.

     We held six of them.

     And we will be welcoming them properly tomorrow.

     We are also reevaluating how best to move forward given the influx of new families in Gaza and the rapidly deteriorating situation in Gaza as Israel continues to commit genocide with impunity as the rest of the world and our so-called civilised democracies watch (when not being actively complicit).

     I did not withdraw any money from the donations today or make any payments.

     We will make a plan on how to proceed tomorrow.

     The first week of the Gaza Verified Emergency Appeal is over.

     As of this post, we’ve raised $36,520 and distributed $32370.42 to 16 families.

     Thank you so much for your support.

     You have already made a difference where our “democratically-elected governments” have done absolutely fuck all.

     I love every one of you who stands with the Palestinian people in their darkest hour.

     You don’t have to ask yourselves what you would have been doing during the Holocaust. You already are. For better or worse.

     Wishing everyone, but especially our families in Gaza, a safe night.

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Saturday, 27-Sep-2025 04:35:39 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Mohammed Shobair from Gaza 🍉

     @mohshbair Be safe, Mohammed. My love to you and your family ❤️

   • Embed this notice
     Mohammed Shobair from Gaza 🍉 (mohshbair@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 27-Sep-2025 04:35:40 JST Mohammed Shobair from Gaza 🍉

     in reply to

     @aral Thank you so much for all your effort and energy deployed Aral.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 28-Sep-2025 22:24:17 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     Hey all,

     @joynewacc and I had a meeting today to discuss how Gaza Verified will continue to evolve in the coming days based on our experience of having run it for one month now (yes, it has only been a month).

     Gaza Verified started with a simple mission: To try and protect the legitimate accounts of Palestinians in Gaza for whom Mastodon and the fediverse is their last lifeline to the rest of the world.

     These are people suffering through genocide and famine at the bloody hands of the Israeli state. Not only has every physical door been slammed in their faces but every virtual door as well, with Big Tech closing their accounts almost as soon as they are opened.

     Then, about ten days ago, as Israel began the latest “ground offensive” stage of its genocide, ordering 1 million people to move South, we realised we had Gaza Verified families trapped without funds to move. So last Saturday, we launched the emergency appeal (https://gaza-verified.org/emergency), with the initial goal of raising $15,000 to help 8 families. As the week progressed and we got more information from the ground, the campaign extended to cover 16 families and has, to date, raised ~$40,000.

     This has already enabled many of our families to move South and, for those who had already evacuated, to obtain land and tents. I’ll have exact numbers and case studies in the blog post I write up later.

     But we also learned a few things that now give us pause as we consider the path ahead:

     1. The campaign has raised an amazing amount of money in a short period of time but we are also getting reports from members that their individual fundraisers have been negatively impacted, with, in some cases, donations to them stopping all together.

     While our other members may not be in the North, the situation in the South is also dire. They still need steady donations each week to afford food, water, and the basic necessities. They pay rent for land and shelter at exorbitant prices.

     The emergency appeal was never meant to be permanent and I do not want us to become the single location for gathering donations for Palestinians. Nor do I want us to play god in distributing them.

     2. We’ve uncovered a small group of people from Gaza, displaced in Egypt, who are misrepresenting their location in order to gather donations. Some still have family in Gaza, others don’t. We have no reason to believe they’re not genuine victims of Israel’s genocide. However, they are also collecting money under false pretences.

     As such we are evolving our rules to explicitly state that misrepresentation will result in instant removal from the programme. We are also evolving our verification process to include multiple other means of verifying their immediate location.

     To be clear, we have a very good understanding at this point of the common characteristics of the accounts from Egypt that are involved in this and we should be readily able to filter any new ones in the future. And, again, this is, to our knowledge, a very small and concerted group of people and should not be taken as a reflection of the greater diaspora of people from Gaza displaced in Egypt or as a reflection of our Palestinian friends from Gaza in general.

     While the situation in Gaza is as dire as ever, Joy and I have never been under any illusion that we can save everyone or even come anywhere close to that. The sad reality is that the only people who can do that – the spineless and complicit leaders of our so-called Western democracies – are not lifting a single finger to stop Israel’s genocide. However, with your help, we can still do some good. And that matters too.

     So, given that (a) we do not want the continuation of the emergency campaign to suck all the oxygen out of the room for the individual fundraisers, (b) we refuse to play god in deciding who gets help and who doesn’t, and (c) we need to evolve the verification process and find new ways to help our families that do not end up in creating unscalable and unmanageable centralisation, we have decided that this is a good time to retire the emergency appeal as it reaches its current $40,000 goal today after having run for a week (I just checked and we have $639 to go).

     We will not run the emergency appeal again next week.

     Instead, we will continue to work to expand the reach of the individual campaigns and help all our families, while welcoming new ones.

     I’ll write a blog post about this today with more details. We will also come up with a plan to distribute the final raised amount (~$5,840.12 + whatever else comes in) to the families that still need assistance and I will, of course, write up a final impact report for you.

     As I said at the start, it’s only been a month since we started Gaza Verified and I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved together. There’s more do. And we are learning and evolving as we go.

     Please continue to show our friends and family in Gaza that they are welcome, safe, and loved on the fediverse.

     Thank you!

     💕

     #GazaVerified

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 28-Sep-2025 22:43:15 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • thom

     @thoboumon Thank you so much for your kind words, Thom.

     I just hope that we can make a positive difference, however small, in the lives of these people who have suffered so much already and are still suffering today.

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     thom (thoboumon@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 28-Sep-2025 22:43:16 JST thom

     in reply to

     @aral Thank you very much for what you’ve been doing and for your authenticity, humility and reactivity. I have a lot of respect and admiration for you.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 28-Sep-2025 22:54:34 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc TL; DR: We are ending the Gaza Verified Emergency Appeal today, after a week.

     If you have any final donations you wish to make, please do so in the next few hours.

     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

     All final monies raised (minus Stripe withdrawal fees and Wise currency conversion fees), like the $32,370 already distributed, will be going to Gaza Verified families evacuating to the South who still have unmet needs.

     Thank you again for your amazing support this week and I look forward to sharing with you the final impact report as well as some of the stories of the families that your humanity has helped.

     💕

     #GazaVerified #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 28-Sep-2025 23:04:55 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy
     • Mitqal

     @mittall @joynewacc Please stay safe, Mitqal.

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     Mitqal (mittall@toot.community)'s status on Sunday, 28-Sep-2025 23:04:57 JST Mitqal

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc Thank you for your efforts with us ❤️❤️

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 28-Sep-2025 23:39:10 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Libby
     • Joy

     @Libby_ @joynewacc 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Libby (libby_@mstdn.social)'s status on Sunday, 28-Sep-2025 23:39:11 JST Libby

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc Thank you so much Aral and Joy for this work.you are doing. It sounds intense and time consuming.
     If we all keep donating when we can and make sure people keep talking about Palestine, we provide hope and put preasure on those who could stop the killing but are reluctant to act.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 00:13:18 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc Hi everyone,

     This is my final push for the Gaza Verified Emergency Appeal.

     We are $474 away from our final goal of $40,000.

     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

     This little remaining amount will actually make a difference in being able to help one more family today, so if you can, please support us this one last time for this campaign and let’s hit that final goal.

     Thank you!

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 00:14:04 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Dr. ir. Brian R. Pauw
     • Joy

     @doc @joynewacc Thank you, real artists steal and all that (it’s based on the Wikipedia one) :)

   • Embed this notice
     Dr. ir. Brian R. Pauw (doc@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 00:14:05 JST Dr. ir. Brian R. Pauw

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc great initiative though and the payment interface is 👍

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 00:20:03 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc Thank you so much, we’ve reached our goal!

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 00:21:06 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • brendan (ジャンク品)

     @bnys Oh wow, yes, thanks for the heads up!

     I’m going to close it now but any money that comes in before I manage to do so will also be distributed today :)

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     brendan (ジャンク品) (bnys@lasersword.club)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 00:21:08 JST brendan (ジャンク品)

     in reply to

     @aral looks like you made it! are you still taking donations past 40K?

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 00:39:10 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @joynewacc I’ve now ended the Gaza Verified Emergency Appeal

     https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/

     Thank you all so much for helping our Gaza Verified families with the evacuations South.

     This doesn’t mean that the emergency situation in Gaza is over. Quite on the contrary, things are getting worse every hour. And there are more friends from Palestine entering the fediverse looking for help.

     We are going to focus on verifying them and boosting their voices and their individual campaigns.

     And you can do so by following them and helping them personally (see https://gaza-verified.org for links to their accounts).

     Also, others, like the inspirational @divya have ongoing campaigns to help families in their circle that you can contribute to:
     https://sunny.garden/@divya/115282517168973531

     I will write up a final impact report after we’ve distributed these latest funds.

     And I will share some of the stories of our families who have been able to move South because of your help in the coming days.

     Words cannot express how grateful I am to you for your continued support in helping our families in Gaza survive genocide.

     Thank you!

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 00:42:18 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • brendan (ジャンク品)
     • often frowned upon

     @virtulis @bnys We’re planning on boosting individual verified accounts but I won’t rule out a very short, focussed campaign should we feel it can help our families.

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     often frowned upon (virtulis@loud.computer)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 00:42:20 JST often frowned upon

     in reply to

     • brendan (ジャンク品)

     @aral @bnys are you planning any more of these in the future? Thank you for the work you've done on this, I'm one of those people who never donated to Gaza fundraisers before Gaza Verified, since they're all in someone else's name (understandable), and sadly scammers are better equipped for outreach than actual people suffering.

   • Embed this notice
     Tariq (rzeta0@mas.to)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 02:25:15 JST Tariq

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc @divya

     Thank you for doing this.

     It takes a lot more work behind the scenes that is visible to most people.

     You've done more than entire governments have.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 02:25:15 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy
     • Tariq

     @rzeta0 @joynewacc @divya 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 02:25:33 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy
     • Oliwier Jaszczyszyn

     @oaj @joynewacc @divya 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Oliwier Jaszczyszyn (oaj@mastodon.com.pl)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 02:25:35 JST Oliwier Jaszczyszyn

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral: Once again I have no appropriate words to express the appreciation for you. Even if this is over, you still have shown to Palestinians that you are their true friend.

     As a wise saying goes – "prawdziwych przyjaciół poznaje się w biedzie" (in Polish that could mean "true friends [unconditionally] help you at your worst times").

     You – and Joy – should be insanely proud of what you've done throughout this week.

     @joynewacc @divya

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 04:05:18 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • brendan (ジャンク品)
     • Sarah W
     • often frowned upon

     @Sarahw @virtulis @bnys Thank you so much for standing by them.

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     Sarah W (sarahw@mastodon.green)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 04:05:20 JST Sarah W

     in reply to

     • brendan (ジャンク品)
     • often frowned upon

     @virtulis @aral @bnys
     Same here. I would never before donate as I couldn't tell real stories from scammers. Thanks for your work and giving us confidence to donate. Thanks for helping the people of Palestine.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 05:12:16 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • gomli
     • Joy

     @gomli @joynewacc Thank you. I am not ruling out that we might do mini campaigns for individual families but we would likely do them differently (again, by having them collect the funds directly) but maybe with us running the campaign that day or something.

     Appreciate your taking the time to share your thoughts and for your kind words.

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     gomli (gomli@piaille.fr)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 05:12:17 JST gomli

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc
     4/
     Ça permettait de garder cette confiance que vous avez instauré et ne pas fait reposer la quantité de donnations pour chaque famille à leur performance de communication, ce qui me paraît pas très juste non plus.

     Quand je vois certains messages des palestiniens, je me rend compte que par exemple les messages répétitifs, copiés collés, avec les mêmes images (ou des images trop choquantes), la volonté de ne pas dévoiler d'informations privées et la pudeur (ce qui est complément compréhensible), desservent malheureusement leur quête de fonds et ce n'est pas normal !

     Voilà, c'était ma réflexion.

   • Embed this notice
     gomli (gomli@piaille.fr)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 05:12:18 JST gomli

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc
     3/
     Vous avez réussi, avec votre pédagogie et votre transparence à instaurer une confiance rare qui a permis à cette campagne de fonctionner aussi bien qu'elle a fonctionné.

     Et malheureusement, peu de palestiniens n'ont ce talent, ni le temps, ni la disponibilité d'esprit pour faire ça, et c'est portant primordial pour la réussite d'une levée de dons.

     Donc je me demande, si il ne faudrait pas continuer en parallèle cette cagnote gaza verified, mais avec des paliers tournants pour chaques familles, les une après les autres.

   • Embed this notice
     gomli (gomli@piaille.fr)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 05:12:19 JST gomli

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc
     2/
     Mais je pense qu'en vrai elles n'auraient sûrement pas donné du tout (en tout cas pas autant) à cause :
     - la mise en confiance et la crainte de se faire arnaquer
     - le problème du choix: comment choisir dans ces situations extrêmes ou tous les demandeurs sont dans des situations de vie et de mort ??
     - le problème de temps à consacrer pour découvrir le malheur de toutes ces personnes. C'est aussi éprouvant pour des personnes qui juste avant étaient sûrement entrain de discuter tranquillement de devoir se plonger dans l'horreur d'un génocide pour décider qui aura le droit d'avoir leurs dons..

   • Embed this notice
     gomli (gomli@piaille.fr)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 05:12:20 JST gomli

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc
     1/..
     Je vous écrit en français, c'est plus simple pour moi de poser les idées.

     Premièrement, je voulais vous remercier tous deux pour m'avoir fait découvrir de près le quotidien que vivent les gens de Gaza, le genre de chose qu'on ne voit jamais aux infos.

     Deuxièmement, cette campagne a été extraordinaire et a réellement sauvé des vie, c'est exceptionnel et ça redonne foi en l'humanité, merci pour votre travail acharné !

     Troisièmement, la fin de ça me laisse mitigé. Il y a bien sur des gens qui ont donnés dans cette campagne qui ne donneront malheureusement pas dans des cagnottes individuelles.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 06:42:05 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy
     • Abeer Ehab(om zeyad)🍉
     • A S E E L
     • AhmedAbuOuda
     • Salem Dawoud

     Hi everyone,

     This is my final impact report for the Gaza Verified Emergency Appeal

     https://gaza-verified.org/emergecy/

     The appeal is now over.

     In total, we raised $40,200. Of that we distributed $39002.43 to 17 different families. The rest went to Stripe and Wise (see below for details).

     One family was added today and one family was removed from the appeal for misrepresenting their location – they were from Gaza but displaced in Egypt, not displaced in the South as they told us. They got $1,200 of the money that was raised.

     Our only expenses were currency conversion and Stripe instant payout fees (we did everything in USD as everyone talks in USD in Gaza. So we got hit by USD→EUR fees as fees came into our account and then EUR→USD before making payments. To add insult to injury some fundraisers were hosting in AUD, EUR, and GBP. We couldn’t use a USD pot in our Wise account to avoid the initial conversion fees as Stripe only offers instant payout on the primary currency.

     Today, I withdrew all of the remaining money in Stripe, €5,658.71, which Wise converted to $6,598.07.

     This was added to the USD pot in Wise that had $46.33 left from Day 5 (https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/115266523992016921) to give us a total of $6,644.40 to distribute.

     We made a distribution plan with @joynewacc and paid out the following amounts:

     • @abeerabed22: $2,000 so that her husband and the 7 families they are responsible for can get the tent and land they need complete their evacuation to the South. They were previously paid $3,000, bringing to the total received to $5,000.

     • @aseelfromgz: $1,000 in addition to the $1,000 received previously so they can pay for unexpected expenses after paying more transportation that they had planned. They will hopefully be arriving safely in the South today (I know that they left, I haven’t had news from Aseel that they have arrived yet and I am going to breathe easier when I hear that they have).

     • @AhmedOuda: $1,000 to help improve their tent.

     • @salemgaza: The remaining amount, which was ~$4,019AUD. I had to eyeball the conversion to empty the pot and overshot a little so, in addition to emptying out the $2,632.01 USD pot, ~€4.27 was taken from our own foundation funds (we’ll survive although the accountants are not going to like me very much).

     So we’ve now distributed all the money we had.

     And the emergency appeal is over.

     I want to stress again not only how grateful I am but how much of a change you have made in the lives of the Gaza Verified families.

     Multiple families have completed their evacuations South thanks to you. Others are closer to their goals or have land and shelter where they did not before.

     I look forward to sharing some of their stories with you in the coming days so you can see the impact of your love and support with your own eyes.

     Thank you all so much.

     I am going to go sleep a bit now.

     Well, after I update the site to add this impact report to it… :)

     💕

     #GazaVerified #EmergencyAppeal #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #fediAid #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppealImpactReport

   • Embed this notice
     Abeer Ehab(om zeyad)🍉 (abeerabed22@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 06:55:03 JST Abeer Ehab(om zeyad)🍉

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc

     Alhamdulillah, with your support and kindness we were able to complete the required amount, and we will now set up our tents in the South to secure shelter for us and the seven families we are responsible for.
     May God reward you with goodness — without your help, we would not have been able to reach♥️♥️

   • Embed this notice
     Chiel | خیل | Хиль | Χιλ (chielk@mas.to)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 06:55:59 JST Chiel | خیل | Хиль | Χιλ

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc Thank you for all your hard work!

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 06:55:59 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Chiel | خیل | Хиль | Χιλ
     • Joy

     @chielk @joynewacc You’re very welcome; thank you so much for supporting our families in Gaza.

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 06:57:02 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy
     • Abeer Ehab(om zeyad)🍉

     @abeerabed22 @joynewacc I can’t wait to hear that your husband and the seven families they are responsible for are safe. And, of course, for the day that you are reunited.

     Please take care of yourself and your little ones and please give my love to your husband and the others in the families.

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 17:45:08 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy
     • Abeer Ehab(om zeyad)🍉
     • A S E E L
     • AhmedAbuOuda
     • Salem Dawoud

     @joynewacc @abeerabed22 @AhmedOuda @salemgaza 🥳 @aseelfromgz and her family have arrived safely in the South.

     They haven’t had a chance to put up their tent yet because the landowner is still picking the olives but they’re alive, safe, and well.

     And it’s all thanks to your support.

     Thank you!

     💕

     #GazaVerified #GazaVerifiedEmergencyAppeal #Gaza #Palestine #FreePalestine

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 18:06:25 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Eleder

     @eleder Thank you so much for standing with our families from Gaza 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Eleder (eleder@frikiverse.zone)'s status on Monday, 29-Sep-2025 18:06:27 JST Eleder

     in reply to

     @aral Thanks a lot sincerely for your effort!!!!