KarunaNews Story

Ahmad al-Nahal was scrolling social media recently when he came across a posted plea that caught his attention. As the director of the Gaza Children Village organization, which houses, educates and feeds about 2,100 orphaned children in the Strip, al-Nahal was no stranger to calls for help. But this request was different: an appeal to save the remaining wild animals from the Rafah Zoo, a troubled and partially evacuated attraction that had once housed lions, tropical birds, primates and other exotic fauna in the southern Gaza city. “The former director of the Rafah Zoo was in trouble; he couldn’t feed the animals,” al-Nahal told The Times of Israel. Al-Nahal reached out to the founder of his own organization, Dr. David Hassan, a Palestinian-American physician based in North Carolina who opened The Gaza Children Village about six months ago. Since that phone call, Hassan’s organization, which is raising money to expand operations to help 20,000 Gazan kids, has also taken on the financial burden of feeding the animals and providing them with medical care. The animals are a source of joy and stress relief for the children. One day al-Nahal hopes all Gazan children will be able to visit the animals at no cost.