"Welcome to the Hope Christian Trust website.
(Charity Commission reference number 328456.)
An emergency appeal for Gaza.Please support us!
The Hope Christian Trust has been supporting the Christian Lighthouse School (Al Minara in Arabic)
in Gaza City for over twenty years. The Trust members have visited regularly. The school is situated
between the Anglican Ahli Hospital and the Orthodox Church compound. Since the start of the war
in October 7th 2023 the school has been closed and the staff dispersed.
Many things have happened in Gaza in the last ten months and as a Trust we have been raising money to support the staff and our friends in Gaza.
We have paid the salaries of the teachers into their bank accounts and will
continue to do so until the end of their contracts in August. With support from the Trust and our
partners we have been able to put nearly £100,000 into the school for the staff and their families
(over 200 people) to the two church compounds (sheltering some 600 people) and some individuals
and families. All monies have been received and receipted and have been most gratefully received.
The Lighthouse School in Gaza City is in fairly good shape. Two of the three school buildings have
sustained some damage ( blown in windows, solar panels damage and punctured water tanks etc)
and an office and a small apartment has been destroyed on one side of a building. Bad but not
reduced to rubble as so many. We know that 80% of school buildings in Gaza have been severely
damaged or destroyed - what of the future education for Gazan’s children?
Eight of the Lighthouse school staff and their families have escaped safely out of Gaza to Egypt and
beyond. Some teachers fled to the south and have relocated numerous times in makeshift camps
and tents with minimal provisions. Contact has been maintained with them. Other teachers and
their families are sheltering in either the Roman Catholic or the Orthodox Church. Nineteen staff
members remain in Gaza. The school has two guards on site 24 hours a day and a groundskeeper
tidying and tending the garden and grounds.
The school students have scattered throughout Gaza and we have only heard from a handful of
families. Because of devastating army action in the school’s catchment area - a very densely
populated and poor area of Gaza City- we fear many will be in the 16, 000 children already killed andthe 21,000 missing. The school secretary continues to transfer funds to staff members’ accounts tohelp them buy food ( very expensive, fresh fruit and vegetables rarely available) She and herhusband were pulled from the rubble earlier in the war after an Israeli missile strike hit the OrthodoxChurch and seventeen Christians were killed she was three months pregnant with their first child and lost the baby. One of many sad stories of loss and injury in Gaza.
We continue to pray that the war will cease and that those we know and love in the school and in the communitywill be safe.We are continuing to support and give financial assistance where we can,but when the war finisheswe will need to help the staff to rebuild their lives ,to repair and re-open the school and provide counselling for traumatised children (and staff)!
We need your continued support and help as we pray and live in hope for the future.
To access our (Summer2024) newsletter,which comments on the current situation in Gaza,and also explains the situation in the West Bank,where we support a family centre inZababdeh( very near the hotspot of Jenin which also needs our support at this time .
Please send whatever you can to our appeal fund.
Cheques can be sent payable toThe Hope Christian Trust
2, Orchard Court,
Claverham
Bristol. BS49 4TB
If you wish to send by bank transfer please e mail for bank details to hopebethlehem@btinternet.com
Any further enquiries please contact 07970968652.
The video below was made after a previous war in Gaza. It depicts perfectly what is happening again to children in Gaza in 2024