American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA)

The MSFF is proud to support ANERA’s Medical In-Kind Programme, which delivers life-saving medical supplies to marginalised refugee communities in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank.

Photographer: Amr Kodash

Ibrahim is a 52-year-old Palestinian refugee. He has been undergoing dialysis for ten years. He lives in Beddawi camp in the north of Lebanon. Up until recently, he had to travel down the whole length of the country to get treatment. Now there is a dialysis centre in his area, and with support from the MSFF, ANERA has donated in-kind medical relief to it.

In Lebanon, the Syrian refugee crisis continues to overwhelm the country. More than 1.4 million Syrians have fled to Lebanon over the past six years, and one in three people is now either a Syrian or Palestinian refugee – most settling in the poorest, least resilient areas without access to Lebanese public hospitals and clinics. The situation is similar in the West Bank and Gaza, as blockades of imports by Israel and Egypt, along with increasingly harsh border restrictions, mean many families cannot afford basic necessities, including medicine.

A doctor at the Palestinian Medical Relief Society in Gaza checks his patient’s blood pressure and prescribes him a medicine to help lower it. With support from the MSFF, ANERA supplies the clinic with medicines like this to help impoverished families.

ANERA has a long history of partnering with international charitable organisations to deliver donations of medical supplies to hospitals and clinics serving the most vulnerable communities in these regions. This includes partnering agreements with several pharmaceutical donors that have the most in-demand medicines available, but require ANERA to cover the cost of handling fees. To support ANERA in this lifesaving work, the MSFF’s two-year Strategic Partnership currently enables the shipment, customs clearance, warehousing and distribution of donated medical supplies to hospitals and clinics serving the poor who are otherwise unable to pay – helping to fund the delivery of approximately £26 million of essential medical supplies to 225,000 refugees.

“In Gaza, medical care has become a luxury - and the MSFF’s grant enables ANERA to supply clinics and hospitals serving the poorest residents, who otherwise simply wouldn’t receive the medicines they need.”
Mostafa Al Ghosain, ANERA In-kind Manager