Women's aid charity organises walks for Gaza

Forgotten Women has organised family-friendly fundraising walks for Gaza in Wolverhampton, Edgbaston, Sutton Coldfield and West Bromwich

A female-run charity that provides aid to women is organising family-friendly fundraising walks to support people in Gaza.

Forgotten Women was set up after organisers found some women in vulnerable situations were sexually exploited as they sought aid. The charity now gives aid directly to women in countries, also including Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen.

A spokesperson said: "With people facing starvation and millions more displaced, we cannot turn our backs."

The planned walks come after the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification stated people in Gaza City were facing famine - denounced as an "outright lie" by Israel, which has denied there is starvation in the territory.

Forgotten Women staff at an aid distribution site in Gaza

The hour-long fundraising walks are taking place in Wolverhampton, Birmingham and the Black Country next month.

Shreen Mahmood, from Wolverhampton, is a consultant and deployment lead for Forgotten Women, who has provided humanitarian aid from the front line in several conflicts and disaster areas.

"Women tend to get exploited sexually while looking for aid, so this charity provides aid from women to women to counteract that," she said.

"What I've also seen on the front line is women self-sacrificing food for men and children. We put them first."

She said as a result the charity only deployed women in these areas.

While Forgotten Women normally works to distribute aid, the charity is having to work with partners to give help to the women and children of Gaza due to the dangerous conditions - including the death of aid workers.

Forgotten Women focuses its efforts on providing aid safely to women and children in conflict and disaster zones

Forgotten Women provides aid boxes with food in them, as well as hygiene parcels, water and tents to people in need of aid - prioritising women and children.

However, in Gaza, the charity was providing hot food instead of food parcels, as Ms Mahmood said the price of tins had soared to about £100 for five or six tins.

"It's extortionate," she said. "Just because of the scarcity, there's no aid getting in."

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which is used by governments and international bodies to identify hunger levels around the world, has raised its classification in Gaza City to Phase 5 - the highest and most severe.

It said that more than half a million people across the Gaza Strip were facing "catastrophic" conditions characterised by "starvation, destitution and death".

Ms Mahmood said it was important how nutrients were introduced to starving people.

"Medical professionals are involved because it's a case of how to refeed them without shocking them into a heart attack," she said.

The family-friendly fundraising walks are a way to combine advocacy and charity work, Ms Mahmood said.

"It's bringing people together. People have really rallied around each other," she said.