Sosebee founded PCRF — which helps Palestinian children in Gaza and the occupied West Bank receive medical treatment — in 1992 He arrived in Palestine almost 30 years ago as part of his university studies in international relations GAZA CITY: An American NGO chief who obtained Palestinian citizenship through marriage is saving thousands of sick children in the Gaza Strip through his work as founder of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. In 2018, Steve Sosebee, an American who married a Palestinian woman, was given a Palestinian passport and ID card. Since then, he has lived on and off in the West Bank. “I did not choose Palestine, but Palestine chose me,” said Sosebee, 67, who was born in Kent, Ohio. He founded PCRF — which helps Palestinian children in Gaza and the occupied West Bank receive medical treatment — in 1992. Sosebee arrived in Palestine almost 30 years ago as part of his university studies in international relations. At the time, he visited the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the first Palestinian intifada. He returned to Palestine years later as a journalist and met Huda Al-Masry, a social worker at the YMCA in Jerusalem. He married Al-Masry and now has two daughters, Jenna and Deema. When Al-Masry died following a battle with cancer in 2009, Sosebee’s two daughters moved to Palestine. During his periods of work in Palestine, Sosebee has helped injured children get treatment, notably two siblings from Hebron who received free treatment in the US. “They were the first kids to ever be sent to the US for free medical care during the intifada,” he said. PCRF, which has an annual budget of about $10 million, has taken care of 2,000 sick and injured children as well as sponsored hundreds of volunteer medical teams from around the world, helping tens of thousands of sick and injured youths in local hospitals. Sosebee founded the first public pediatric cancer department in Beit Jala Hospital, near Bethlehem in the West Bank, in honor of his wife. The 67-year-old later remarried Zeean Salman, a US Sudanese pediatric oncologist. PCRF, an NGO, relies on individual donations, and has three offices in the Gaza Strip as well as six in the West Bank. “Gaza needs help. There is an urgent need to provide health services for children there. The private sector cannot cover the needs of the population, as is the case in the West Bank,” Sosebee told Arab News The Gaza Strip is suffering from a deteriorating health situation as a result of the 15-year Israeli blockade, in addition to Palestinian political divisions. More than 2.3 million people live in the Gaza Strip, which has been run by Hamas since the party won elections in 2006 and took control of the area in an armed struggle in mid-2007. Sosebee believes that the political division and the international community’s unwillingness to deal with the government in Gaza have led to the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the enclave. “We do not deal with politics, our work is humanitarian only, and this is the reason for our success,” he said. “As Americans, we speak of freedom, but at the same time, we can’t ignore the human rights violations. There are people in Palestine who need help and assistance,” he added. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, followed by the outbreak of the first intifada in 1987, the second intifada in 2000, the Israeli blockade of Gaza, and several rounds of escalation in the Gaza Strip, have left many Palestinians, especially children, unable to access urgent treatment. “I have faced many problems, but I learned how to work and overcome the problems. I believe in justice, I stay out of religion and politics, stay professional and work hard to serve the patients,” he said. “Our greatest success is the establishment of two departments integrated with existing hospitals in Beit Jala and Gaza, and what saddens me most is the inability to treat every child who needs medical care,” Sosebee added.