Why some Palestinians are shunning foreign aid

Grassroots platforms to fund aid and development projects have been sprouting up in recent years throughout the West Bank and Gaza, with more groups purposefully steering clear of EU or US money, and sometimes going it alone altogether.

This trend towards so-called community philanthropy is a major shift for a part of the world consistently ranked among the top recipients of aid per capita – one driven by fears that external assistance can be a vessel for foreign countries to implement their vision of what a Palestinian state should look like, instead of a Palestinian vision for that future.