Is It Safe to Donate to Gaza Online? How to Check Before You Give.

The first comment on my GoGetFunding page when I launched in 2023 was from someone asking if I was real. I did not take offense. It was the right question. There are unfortunately people who exploit humanitarian crises and build fake campaigns to steal money that was meant for people in genuine need.

I want to help you identify those campaigns so that your generosity goes where it is actually needed. I am going to tell you exactly what a legitimate campaign looks like, what red flags signal a fake one, and then I am going to show you everything my own campaign provides so you can judge for yourself.

The 5 Things Every Legitimate Campaign Must Have

1. Government-Issued Photo ID

A real person running a real campaign should be willing to show you government-issued identification. For a Palestinian family, this would be a Palestinian Authority ID card. It does not need to be the complete unredacted document — it is reasonable to redact sensitive details like ID numbers for privacy and security reasons in a conflict zone. But the name, face, and location should be visible and consistent with what the campaign claims.

If a campaign has been running for months and has never shown any form of identification, that is a serious problem.

2. Video Proof From the Claimed Location

Photos can be stolen from social media. Videos are harder to fake convincingly, especially when they are recent, location-specific, and show the actual person speaking. A legitimate campaign should have video updates that show the real person, their real surroundings, and ideally some timestamped or location-specific details that confirm they are where they say they are.

What to look for: Does the background match the claimed location? Are the videos consistent over time? Does the person speak naturally or do they seem to be reading from a script? Is there evidence of real life happening around them?

3. A Consistent Long-Term Update History

Fake campaigns often launch, collect money quickly, and go quiet. Real campaigns have a history of regular updates because real people in real situations keep having things happen to them. Look for campaigns that have been posting updates for months or years, not just at launch.

The updates should also be specific and varied. Generic posts that could apply to any situation are less convincing than updates that mention specific events, specific prices, specific dates, and specific purchases.

4. Expense Receipts

This is the gold standard for transparency. Can the campaign show you what donations were actually spent on? Real families buy real things and those purchases generate receipts. A legitimate campaign should be posting photographs of actual receipts for major purchases — rent payments, water deliveries, food, medicine.

These receipts do not need to be in English. A handwritten Arabic receipt photographed with a phone is perfectly valid. What matters is that receipts exist, they are dated, they show amounts, and the amounts are consistent with what the campaign says money was needed for.

5. A Third-Party Platform Verification

Campaigns hosted on platforms like GoGetFunding, LaunchGood, or similar services benefit from the platform's own verification process. These platforms check identity documents and have terms of service that fraudulent campaigns violate. They are not foolproof, but a campaign that has been running on one of these platforms for years without being taken down has passed a basic legitimacy check that a purely standalone website has not.

Skepticism is not disrespectful. It is how you protect yourself and make sure your money actually reaches people who need it. Ask for evidence. Any real person in a real crisis will understand.

Red Flags That Should Make You Stop

These are the warning signs I would personally look for before donating to any campaign.

How to Quickly Check Any Campaign

Here is a practical five-minute verification process you can use on any Gaza donation campaign before giving.

Step one: Google the campaign name or the person's name alongside words like "scam," "fake," or "fraud." If there are credible reports of problems, they will usually appear in search results.

Step two: Right-click the main photos in the campaign and do a reverse image search using Google Images or TinEye. If the photos come back as belonging to someone else or appearing in unrelated contexts, that is a serious red flag.

Step three: Read the update history from oldest to newest. Does the story stay consistent? Do the prices mentioned match real Gaza prices? Do the events described sound like a real person's life or like a generic script?

Step four: Check whether the campaign is hosted on a reputable platform that has its own verification process, or whether it is purely standalone.

Step five: Look for receipts. Even one or two photographs of real receipts is a meaningful transparency signal.

What My Campaign Provides

I am going to apply the same standards to myself that I am recommending you apply to others.

Please check these things. Genuinely. Go to the verification page, look at the photos, read the GoGetFunding history, and satisfy yourself that I am who I say I am. That is not an unusual thing to ask. It is exactly the right thing to do.

A Note on Trusting Your Instincts

After everything I have described, there is still a human element to this that no checklist can fully capture. Does the campaign feel like a real person is behind it? Do the updates sound like someone living through something, or like someone performing a story they invented?

The updates on this website and on my GoGetFunding page are not polished. Some of them are short because I wrote them when I was tired, or when the power was unreliable, or when something difficult had just happened. Ibrahim asking me when he could go back to school — that is not something I invented to generate sympathy. It happened. It broke my heart. I wrote it down.

Real people are messier and more specific than fabricated personas. Trust that instinct when you read a campaign. And when in doubt, use the checklist above.

Final Thought

The people who get hurt most by fraudulent campaigns are not just the donors who lose money. They are the real families in real crises who lose credibility because bad actors made everyone suspicious of all online giving.

Every time someone asks me to prove I am real, I see it as an opportunity, not an insult. Because if I can prove it convincingly enough that you feel safe donating, then the next family running a legitimate campaign will also benefit from donors who have learned what real verification looks like.

Be skeptical. Check the evidence. And then, if the evidence is solid, give generously. That is the right way to help Gaza.