Gaza
THE CRISIS
Israel’s assault on Gaza since October 2023 has led to, by many measures, one of the most severe humanitarian catastrophes in recent history. Experts have placed the nine-month death toll at over 180,000, with hundreds of thousands of more injured and over a million facing starvation. Leading legal scholars have called the catastrophe a textbook case of genocide.
The vast majority of the Palestinians in Gaza have been internally displaced by the war and genocide; tens of thousands have fled into Egypt and beyond, a journey that is both dangerous and extremely costly.
Meanwhile, powerful countries like the United States continue to sign blank checks to enable Israel’s illegal actions, and corporate media and politicians worldwide have fueled disinformation – including by egregiously mistranslating Arabic words – to demonize Palestinians and fan the flames of war.
The most recent devastation follows more than 75 years of apartheid, occupation, and illegal siege and blockade of Palestinian land since before the Nakba, or “catastrophe” in Arabic, during the establishment of Israel in 1948.
OUR INTERVENTIONS
Respond’s Arabic team has been working around the clock in response to the genocide in Gaza. Our interventions have included extensive direct service to Palestinians impacted by the violence and organizations supporting them; workforce development for Palestinian language practitioners; and mistranslation watchdog work to combat the systemic misunderstanding and demonization of Palestinian people.
DIRECT SERVICE
Since October 2023, our caseload on the Arabic team has exploded. In 3 months of 2024, for example, the Arabic team received six times as many cases for Gazans as our entire caseload in 2023.
We have provided interpreting and translation support for over 30 individual asylum seekers and their families (each case often supports 4-8 people); people who are applying for humanitarian parole applications; and urgent remote psychological and obstetric care support for Gazans stuck in Gaza.
We have also supported nearly 300 emergency response projects related to the genocide. These projects have included interpreting for people who have been incarcerated due to their activism in Palestine. They also include translating legal support, know-your-rights, and public advocacy materials for activists in Europe and across North America organizing to demand a ceasefire and an end to the 76 year occupation of Palestine in 10 different language combinations.
We have done 274 emergency response projects for Palestinians since Oct 7th spanning from interpreting for people who got incarcerated due to their activism in Palestine, translation legal support, know your rights, and public advocacy materials for activists in Europe and across North America organizing to demand a ceasefire and an end to the 76 year occupation of Palestine in 10 different language combinations. We are working with legal collectives who are working to build cases to prosecute governments that are complicit in the war crimes and genocide escalating in Gaza, every single day.
We have provided interpreting and translation support for 30+ individual asylum seekers and their families (each case often supports 4-8 people) people who are applying for humanitarian parole applications, as well as interpreting for urgent remote psychological and obstetric care support for Gazans stuck in Gaza.
While supporting and facilitating the work of 20 nonprofit organisations helping Gazans and Palestinians on pro-bono basis like the Immigrant Justice Project, Gaza Family Project - Arab American Civil Rights League, Immigration Justice for Palestine, European Legal Support Center, as well as 5 pro bono law firms, the Arabic team members never stopped assisting those in need despite their own financial vulnerability.
The Arabic team has welcomed +65 translators since October 7th, 32 of them are Palestinian translators, based in the West Bank, Israel and the diaspora.
WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
This work has been led by Palestinian and Arab translators – who before October 2023 were already inundated with casework responding to recent environmental catastrophes in Libya, Morocco, and Syria.
In response to the erupting need, Respond’s Arabic Team has grown exponentially to increase individual and collective capacity to handle requests for help. In the past 9 months, the Arabic Team has welcomed over 65 new members. Many of them have loved ones in Gaza, live in the West Bank or Israel, or are otherwise directly affected by the genocide themselves.
Team has welcomed over 65 new members. Many of them have loved ones in Gaza, live in the West Bank or Israel, or are otherwise directly affected by the genocide themselves.
As of July 2024, eight linguists on Respond’s Arabic Team are in or fleeing from Gaza.
One of our Gazan’s translators reached out to me requesting more assignments, emphasizing that she depends on this work for her living. She also told me that she desires to work as a means of coping with the challenging psychological circumstances in Gaza, using the distraction of work to help manage trauma and navigate difficult situations. In another similar situation, a Gazan translator contacted me to get more tasks, as she is the only member of her family who was able to flee Gaza. She was in need of a job to survive in Egypt. But given that she was stateless and she doesn’t have the right to work there, we stepped in and we helped her.
-Ayah Najadat, Arabic Team Lead
SYSTEMS CHANGE
As the team has been tirelessly providing direct service to Gazan Palestinian humanitarian parolees and others, Respond has played a crucial role in uncovering how the weaponization of language is exacerbating the abuses of Palestinians and their allies in Gaza and elsewhere.
Respond has provided crucial media watchdog interventions, publishing a project called “Mistranslating the Movement,” a public education campaign to combat common mistranslations of Arabic words such as “shaheed” (martyr) and “intifada” (shaking off).
Our Palestinian translators and interpreters have also directly intervened in cases of egregious mistranslations in the media. For example, when BBC News mistranslated the testimony of a Palestinian woman into praise for Hamas – rather than what she really said, which was a description of the inhumane conditions in Israeli prisons – Respond published an accurate translated transcription. This intervention went viral and ultimately led to BBC News to publish a correction.
Finally, Respond has supported critical advocacy, education, and human rights work regarding the genocide in Gaza. Our team has collaborated with civil and human rights organizations in the U.S., Palestine, Europe, and elsewhere to facilitate their work toward accountability and justice,
This has included translating a “war diary” from on the ground for a Boston University publication; affidavits, legal proceedings, know-your-rights documents, and trainings for people experiencing or at risk of incarceration and criminalization due to protesting; and statements from organizations calling for ceasefire, humanitarian corridors, and a lifting of the 16-year siege on Gaza.