Israeli bombardment putting strain on Gaza healthcare

As of today, Israel is again bombing Gaza. Twenty-nine Palestinians have already been killed, including six children, and over 250 injured. The number will rise as the bombardment continues. The air strikes – coupled with Israel’s ongoing blockade that prevents medical supplies and equipment from entering into the region – has greatly exacerbated the dire conditions faced by the area’s 2.1 million inhabitants.

Our Stop the Bleed campaign is a response to this ongoing emergency. Attacks by the Israeli military on Gaza in 2008-09, 2012, 2014, 2018-202, and 2021 resulted in large numbers of preventable deaths from bleeding. The availability of some tourniquets in the Great March of Return in 2018-20 and the Israeli-led war in 2021 proved that tourniquets save lives. We want to continue saving lives, but we need your help. Tourniquets in Gaza are proven to be highly effective, but are not readily available. Your donation will equip first responders and emergency rooms in Gaza with this life-saving device.

What is a Tourniquet?

A tourniquet is a medical device that is put on a wounded arm or a leg to stop it from bleeding. At its most basic, people have used belts or cables as tourniquets. However, modern engineering has led to better designs with higher rates of success and easier application. Glia’s tourniquet is an innovative device that can be applied to children or adults and has shown a high success rate in field trials in Gaza. It is engineered to be easy to produce in massive quantities inside Gaza using local supplies, preventing the dependence on Israel to allow importation. 

During the Great March of Return, Glia developed and produced tourniquets to treat protesters shot during the March. Hundreds of tourniquets were used by doctors and paramedics, preventing numerous deaths from bleeding. While distributing tourniquets in the field, paramedic Musa Abuhassanin was killed, and Glia's medical director and field medic Dr. Tarek Loubani was wounded. The Gaza Tourniquet was again used throughout the 2021 war.

Stop Bleeding Initiatives

Glia Gaza is a leader in Gaza’s Stop Bleeding Campaign, which equips hospitals and ambulances with tourniquets and trains paramedics and hospital staff in how to properly apply them. Working with local partners, Glia Gaza provided tourniquets to support the treatment of those shot during the Great March of Return, as well as those injured during the 2021 war.

We need your support to produce enough lifesaving tourniquets to adequately stock ambulances and emergency rooms in Gaza.

Sustainability Matters

This project is founded on the idea that Palestinians can meet their own needs by making devices for themselves using locally available materials and skills. Glia Gaza has been training engineers for years, and has extended its workshops to students in Gaza so we can teach the next generation about the possibilities of 3D printing medical hardware, including tourniquets.

Glia uses solar power to run 3D printers that are made from locally available parts, and even the plastic filament we use includes locally recycled plastic. Your donation will ensure that this project lives forever!

How You Can Help

You can help this project succeed!

Donate generously today. With your donation we can ensure that health care workers in Gaza are supplied with this life-saving device

Use and share this link to set-up automated giving during Ramadan. Every sign-up earns us an additional $100 toward our campaign! 

Share our campaign page to friends and family to help spread word about this important project, and use the hashtag #stopthebleedgaza

Follow us on social media: Twitter @glia_intl, Facebook @glia.project, and Instagram @glia_intl

Who We Are

Glia is committed to providing communities with low-cost medical devices using innovative technology such as 3D printing. We create high-quality, open-source medical hardware to make health care more equitable. We create and share technology that is easily accessible and can be manufactured in low-resources settings. Glia has been working in Gaza since 2014, and has already successfully provided health care workers with stethoscopes, face shields, and tourniquets. 

Our Previous Work in Gaza

Together with Islamic Relief Canada, Glia launched #PPE4Gaza in December 2019 to make and distribute personal protective equipment for healthcare workers in Gaza. Through the generosity of donors like you, we raised over $100,000, allowing us to respond almost immediately to the Ministry of Health’s need for PPE by 3D printing and distributing thousands of face shields. With the help of Medical Aid for Palestinians UK, we successfully shipped 3D printers and reusable respirators to Gaza so we could continue the work and increase local capacity.

In response to the bombardment of Gaza in 2021, Glia partnered with the International Development Relief Foundation to launch the Open Gaza Initiative, which will train and deploy engineers to refurbish and repair existing hospital medical equipment using cutting edge technology, such as 3D printing, local printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturing, and use of desktop-scale CNC machines.

Two members of Glia, Drs. Benjamin Thomson and Tarek Loubani were also involved in EmpowerGAZA, a project that placed solar panels and batteries on four major hospitals in Gaza, providing uninterrupted power.

Our record shows, Glia’s team is committed to the health of all of those in need around the world and in Gaza.