Save the Children

Profile

Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
Websitewww.savethechildren.org
In their own wordsThe “leading independent organization creating lasting change in the lives of children in need...”

Funding

  • In 2022, total income was $1.1 billion; total expenses were $1.1 billion.
  • Save the Children has received grants from NorwayItalyDenmark, and Germany for projects in the West Bank and Gaza. (See table below for further funding information.)
  • Foundation Partners” include Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Open Society Foundation.
  • In 2021-2024, Save the Children is an implementing partner on a €3,295,308 project funded by the European Union titled “Adolescents and Youth (AYS) For Green: Gaza Resilient Economy and Environment.”
  • In 2021-2022, Italy granted $17,000 to Save the Children, in partnership with Islamic Relief Palestine (IRPAL) and Vento di Terra.
    • On June 19, 2014, Israel’s Defense Minister declared Islamic Relief Worldwide to be illegal, based on its alleged role in funneling money to Hamas, and banned it from operating in Israel and the West Bank. (Hamas is a designated terror organization by Israel, the U.S., EU, and Canada.) According to news reports, the decision was made after “the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), the coordinator for government activities in the territories, and legal authorities provided incriminating information against IRW.”
  • In 2019-2023, Save the Children received $2,521,583 for a project to “Focus on the monitoring of child rights including improving state capacity to monitor and report to the UN Committe [sic] on the Rights of the Child; strengthening of national systems and building awareness and capacity of civil society to promote and defend child rights.”
  • In 2021-2022, Germany ($1,100,110) and Norway ($228,801) funded a project with Save the Children for the “strengthening of the MRM/CAAAC [sic] documentation” in schools in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. (See more on Save the Children’s CAAC campaign below.)
  • In 2021, Save the Children received $419 million in “grants and contracts” from the United States.
  • In 2022, Save the Children received $1.2 million from the UN OCHA occupied Palestinian territory Humanitarian Fund for “Emergency quality education support to conflict affected schools and students,” “Ensuring Access to Quality and Inclusive Education for Vulnerable Children,” and “Urgent Food E-Voucher support for the most vulnerable families in Gaza strip.”

Activities

  • Save the Children claims that while they work with “other organizations, governments, non-profits and a variety of local partners,” they maintain “independence without political agenda or religious orientation.”
  • Save the Children runs a number of projects in Gaza and the West Bank, implementing “programs in the areas of education, economic opportunities and psychosocial health… humanitarian assistance, child protection and youth development.”
    • Despite a humanitarian mandate, some of these programs include major political and partisan advocacy that fuels the conflict, echoing the Palestinian narrative of victimization.
  • In May 2023, Save the Children and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) held two training courses on “the mechanisms of monitoring and documenting child rights violations,” and to “child rights advocacy locally and internationally in light of the recurrence of violations against children in Palestine due to the Israeli systematic practices.” The training sessions were funded by Sweden.
  • As a member of the Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA), Save the Children has been a signatory on numerous statements demonizing Israel.
    • In November 2021, AIDA published a press release condemning the decision by the Israeli Ministry to designate six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. According to AIDA, “The decision is a further erosion of civic and humanitarian space and stands to significantly constrain the work of the six organisations which have worked with the international community, including the UN, for decades, providing essential services to countless Palestinians.”
    • In May 2020, AIDA called for “third states, the EU, and its member states, to devise and publish an exhaustive list of countermeasures to adopt in order to disincentivise Israel’s annexation policies in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
  • In October 2020, Save the Children published a report on “the impact of the Israeli military detention system on Palestinian children.” Save the Children itself acknowledged that the data presented in the publication “is not a statistically significant or representative sample. As the report intentionally presents children’s experience from their own perspective, it is also important to note that incidents they mention have not been independently verified by Save the Children” (emphases added). The report severely downplays the extent and severity of violence committed by Palestinian minors against Israeli civilians and soldiers, and ignores the widespread phenomena of incitement prevalent in the West Bank.
  • In November 2018, during the violence on the Gaza border, Save the Children stated that “The Israeli government must end the use of sniper fire and live ammunition against children in Gaza. The killing and wounding of children is never acceptable.” Save the Children does not question why these children were present in an obviously violent situation where there was a known potential for injury, nor does the organization condemn Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups’ recruitment and use of children throughout the violence. The NGO also ignored the violent nature of the protests, which have consisted of an organized armed attack on the Israeli border and IDF positions, attempts to destroy and breach the border fence, and sustained arson, rocket, and mortar attacks on Israeli civilian communities.
  • On May 18, 2018, Save the Children and the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution sponsored a workshop at the Dar al Huda kindergarten, “Training of Teachers on Positive Discipline in Everyday Teaching.”
    • On May 26, 2018, the Dar al Huda kindergarten in Gaza held a graduation ceremony that included the mock killing and kidnapping of Israelis by children dressed as combatants.1 The simulation included sophisticated equipment such as drones, body cameras, military fatigues, body armor, and sniper camouflage. Children wore headbands representing Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), designated as a terrorist organization by the USEU, and others.
    • According to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, Dar al Huda held similarly exploitative military-style events in in 2017 and 2016.
  • In February 2018, as a member of Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA), Save the Children published a report titled “50 Years of Occupation: Dispossession, Deprivation and De-development” that accused Israel of “systemic, decades-long squeeze of Palestinian economic prospects and human rights.”
  • In September 2017, Save the Children published an article titled “Gaza: One Million Palestinian Children in ‘Unlivable’ Conditions” blaming Israel for a “decade of isolation” of Gaza that “had reduced power available to households…” It also called on Israel to blindly “lift the Gaza blockade,” without acknowledging the rationale behind it – to prevent weapon smuggling into Hamas-controlled Gaza. The publication also does not mention the word “Hamas” or the commandeering of aid by the terror group, and minimizes the role of Egypt.
  • In August 2017, to mark World Humanitarian Day, Save the Children referred to an “alarming rise in abuses” and claimed that “After 50 years of occupation, generations of Palestinian children remain trapped in an ongoing cycle of violence and diminishing human rights” and “are being denied a future.”
  • In August 2017, Save the Children accused Israel of “target[ing]” Palestinian “educational facilities” and alleged that children “face countless threats in simply trying to reach school and enjoy their basic right to education. These threats include: violence and harassment from settlers/Israeli soldiers on the journey to school, military activity in or around their schools, military or police arresting and detaining children from their classrooms, lost time due to the closure of a military area or firing zone, delays crossing checkpoints…” Save the Children ignored Palestinian incitement of children for violence, the use of schools to indoctrinate children with antisemitic and violent propaganda, and the recruitment and use of Palestinian children by armed groups.
  • During the 2014 Gaza conflict, Save the Children published a full-page advertisement in papers throughout the UK of the names of Palestinian children who were killed; a similar list of Israeli children was not produced. Similarly, Save the Children Australia released a highly emotive YouTube video, “One child killed every hour in the Israel/ Gaza conflict” (August 5, 2014), concluding with a call to “Stop the use of explosive weapons in Gaza and Israel. End the blockade.”
  • Similarly, in a 2013 report “Attacks on Education,” disproportionate emphasis is placed on the alleged challenges to child education in Gaza, with little mention of the obstacles Israeli children face as a result of illegal rocket attacks.
  • The organization’s statement on the Gaza conflict in November 2012 focused on children in Gaza entirely and omitted the devastating impact of missile attacks targeting civilians in Israel, including children in Sderot and other southern cities.

Campaign to Blacklist the IDF

Partners

Grants to Save the Children for Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza (amounts in $US)

Donor20232022202120202019
Germany1,100,1101,100,1101,100,110
Denmark12,738293,064147,124
Norway1,835,481228,801982,247591,758117,000
Canada756,079
European Union211,268633,8031,056,338
United States3,651,492

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