A fundraising campaign for children critically injured in Gaza, organized by authors Sonia Faleiro and Fatima Bhutto and literary agent Julia Churchill, has raised almost $85,000.
#BooksForGaza brought in 67,128.80 British pounds—about $84,762.20—for the Ghassan Abu Sittah Children’s Fund, whose mission is “to transport critically injured children and their carers from Gaza to Lebanon for surgical, medical, psychological, and social care, and to put in place a long term care plan for each child, with the goal of helping each child back into their communities where they will resume their life as normally as possible.”
The campaign launched last week and featured authors auctioning signed copies of their books to benefit the fund. Authors who donated books included Sally Rooney, Naomi Klein, Paul Harding, Salman Rushdie, Joe Sacco, Ali Smith, Michael Rosen, and Max Porter.
“Writers have a duty to bear witness and archive and to be ever alert to injustice in the world,” Bhutto said in a statement. “The horrors of what is being done to Gaza has broken all our hearts. It gives me hope that we can come together in this powerful way to stand in solidarity with Gaza.”
While the auction is over, the fundraiser is still open to donations.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
