Israelis and Palestinians work together to save dog shelter

(9 Sep 2016) LEAD IN:
An animal shelter in the West Bank is transcending political and religious divisions to provide care for local dogs.
Israelis and Palestinians have been working together to raise money so the area's only dog shelter can stay open.

STORY-LINE
These puppies are getting the care they need in the West Bank's only shelter for strays.
They're some of the more than 60 dogs that Diana Babish looks after in the shelter in Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem.
But just a few weeks ago, this unique safe haven was facing closure due to lack of funds.
Babish says finding enough money and support for the shelter was a struggle from the very beginning.
"I had this idea to establish the first animal shelter and I have faced a lot of problems, first because this is a new idea, I have to raise awareness for the people to accept this idea. I started by collecting local donations from the people in order to do this shelter and we collected a simple amount of money which is not enough because we had a lot of debts caused by establishing this shelter. We have now over 60 dogs, we had before 100, some of them were adopted, others were dead, but now we have over 60 dogs and they need food, vaccination, medication, surgeries," she says.
With the threat of closure hanging over the shelter, Israelis and Palestinians have come together to raise money to keep the organisation afloat.
The joint effort has raised more than 19,000 US dollars in less than two weeks.
The campaign on the Israeli Headstart crowdfunding website exceeded its original goal of 50,000 shekels (approx 13,000 US dollars) by almost 50 percent.
Babish says Israeli organisations are also helping her take dogs in need of surgery into Israel, where they can get the treatment they need.
"We have to have enough money to take care of the animals that we have here and also for the animals that we are going to collect because we have thousands in Bethlehem governorate and we met other organisations in Israel that they also offered their help," she says.
"They help me in going to Israeli hospitals to do surgeries for many of our dogs and also they are helping me collecting money in the campaign they are doing to cover the expenses and the debts that I have for this shelter and hopefully also from these organisations that I can build a new shelter with a wider space, to be in another place, which will be sufficient for other, many other animals."
She says the humane desire to take care of animals is something that can transcend political and religious conflicts.
"Any cooperation between any side, whether it is Arabic or European or Israeli, it is a part away from any political conflict, it is for the sake of the animals," she says.
"It is pure humane, pure ethic, pure helping the animals and also as well helping the people, because they face problems from the increasing numbers of stray dogs in the streets. So the cooperation is for the sake of the shelter, for the sake of helping those innocent animals."
Babish received a large donation from the Israeli animal rights group PTORA.
Yoram Erez, the chairman of PTORA, says he wanted to donate money to support Babish's work in the West Bank.
"I realised that Diana is ray of light in the area and I said that if Diana will extinguish the light we have a problem. So we decided to come together for her, and to start a crowd funding campaign with the sum of 50,000 shekels (more than 13,000 US dollars) and for us it gives her breathing room so that she can stand on her two feet and pay the debts, payments and upcoming taxes," he says.

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