Activities

•  SCF 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.”
• SCF 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Much of the advocacy is unrelated to children or humanitarian issues. For example, Save the Children UK claims that “[p]rior to the Israeli occupation in 1967, Palestinian population of the Jordan Valley was estimated at between 200,000 and 320,000. Today, the population is approximately 56,000…” These figures originated with the politicized Palestinian NGO Ma’an Development Center, whose “data” change from report to report and without reference to external sources, and the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department. The 1967 numbers also appear to be greatly inflated. A leaked 2011 EU report on “Area C and Palestinian State Building,” used Save the Children-UK’s claims as evidence that “the Palestinian presence in Area C has continuously been undermined…by Israel as occupying power.”
• During the 2014 Gaza conflict, 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.”