Johannesburg, South Africa — The gang erupted in thunderous applause as Dr Imtiaz Sooliman ascended the stage, wearing his signature darkish inexperienced T-shirt emblazoned with South Africa’s flag and the title of his organisation, Reward of the Givers.
The humanitarian had been invited to Cape City’s Sea Level promenade in October for a rally in assist of Palestine, to offer protesters enraged about Israel’s genocide in Gaza an replace on his support company’s work within the war-torn enclave.
He rapidly bought fired up, sharing how his workforce in Gaza had misplaced members of the family throughout the Israeli assault and the way the battle for justice for Palestinians has been a 75-year wrestle.
“Each time we protested, the Zionists have been too intelligent; they have been smug, acted with impunity. They put worry in firms, in universities … in authorities,” he mentioned, including that they lobbed accusations of anti-Semitism in response to any criticism of Israel. “Effectively, I’ve bought a brand new message for them: discover a new narrative. That’s boring, boring and silly,” he added.
The massive crowd erupted into extra cheers and applause.
Sooliman, a skilled medical physician who has opted to not practise any extra, is a pure at firing up giant crowds, his ardour for justice and humanitarianism evident.
Behind closed doorways, the 62-year-old is targeted and meticulous – beginning his days early, and fascinating in each step of the work his organisation is concerned in, even drafting social media posts for his groups to share.
Three a long time in the past, he based Reward of the Givers after a religious journey to Turkiye impressed him to offer again. The inspiration has since grown to turn out to be South Africa’s most outstanding support company, responding to crises each domestically and overseas.
Regardless of the organisation’s footprint and wide selection of accolades, Sooliman has discovered himself in Zionist crosshairs for criticising Israel’s actions in Gaza for the reason that warfare started in October 2023.
However to Sooliman, his philosophy is easy: human want transcends political affiliation.
“I don’t mince my phrases. As a result of I don’t take a look at conflicts from a political viewpoint. I take a look at it from the humanitarian viewpoint,” the outspoken physician informed Al Jazeera from his dwelling in Pietermaritzburg in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province.
Reward of the Givers
The Reward of the Givers Basis began in Pietermaritzburg in 1992, quickly extending its work throughout the nation, the continent and additional afield. The organisation now employs 600 folks, with workplaces in 9 nations, together with Somalia, Yemen and Palestine.
In keeping with information, Reward of the Givers has distributed 6 billion South African rand ($319m) in support throughout 47 nations in 32 years. The organisation is broadly funded by huge South African firms and small non-public donors, it mentioned.
Whereas the NGO responds to catastrophic disasters – together with tsunamis, earthquakes and warfare – at dwelling it nonetheless addresses myriad smaller crises plaguing native communities, typically stepping in when authorities can’t.
Lately, in South Africa’s arid Karoo area, Sooliman and his workforce have been immersed in preparations for the inauguration of a containerised kitchen in Touws River, a small railway city the place the overwhelming majority of the 8,000 residents grapple with life beneath the poverty line.
Sooliman spoke to Al Jazeera whereas dealing with logistics and drafting a press launch for the occasion in anticipation of the launch of a feeding centre desperately wanted in the neighborhood.
Most Touws River residents survive on paltry authorities grants, and eight out of 10 individuals are unemployed. Each day, lots of of youngsters queue to have what is usually their solely scorching meal.
Within the midst of that, fires additionally ravaged the Western Cape province, prompting one other pressing name for intervention by Reward of the Givers. In the meantime, heat meals have been being ready and distributed to folks caught on the South African border with Mozambique amid persisting post-election violence.
On the similar time in Syria, groups have been making ready to open a refuge centre for girls and kids whereas others distributed meals to the poor within the days after the collapse of the Bashar al-Assad regime.
Accusations and assist
Sooliman’s life is a whirlwind of crises, and the sensible work takes centre stage. However he doesn’t draw back from calling out injustices the place he sees them.
His organisation has labored to assist folks within the occupied Palestinian territory for many years. However when Israel bombed the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza within the early days of the warfare, he publicly known as out the Israeli authorities’s actions in a collection of media interviews in South Africa.
He additionally known as the scenario in Gaza within the first weeks of the warfare “bloody harmful” and “the worst scenario on this planet as a result of there isn’t a exit”.
“I went berserk,” he informed Al Jazeera.
He was ready for a backlash. The onslaught he quickly confronted from native pro-Israeli teams concerned accusations — with no supporting proof — that he was funding “terror teams” and harbouring an “Islamist agenda”. Sooliman has rubbished these claims.
His detractors sought to have banks clamp down on Reward of the Givers and examine their funding amid an obvious marketing campaign on social media to discredit him.
Lawrence Nowosenetz, a former member of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, a neighborhood Zionist foyer group, petitioned the NGO Helen Suzman Basis, whose patron was Jewish, to forestall Sooliman from delivering an annual lecture final 12 months.
“The chance that donor funding in Gaza was used completely to offer humanitarian aid for harmless civilians is distant,” Nowosenetz wrote, claiming with out proof that it’s “possible” some Reward of the Givers sources went into supporting Hamas.
Op-ed items in The Instances of Israel accused Sooliman of nefarious hyperlinks to Iran, which he has denied. Effectively-known, right-leaning South African musician David “The Kifness” Scott claimed on X that Sooliman was “a radical Islamist below the guise of a humanitarian” — once more, with out proof.
The allegations didn’t stick and backfired with an avalanche of assist for Sooliman, with authorities ministers, spiritual leaders, activists and enterprise leaders expressing assist for the work Reward of the Givers does. The Helen Suzman Basis stood by its choice to have Sooliman ship its annual memorial lecture, which he did in November.
On a regular basis folks additionally took to social media to push again in opposition to Sooliman’s critics.
“These individuals are ceaselessly serving to out. When the farmers have been struggling a drought, white Afrikaans Christian farmers … these Reward of the Givers folks have been sorting them out with water,” a white Afrikaner man, who identifies as TheUprightMan on TikTok, mentioned, defending Reward of the Givers amid a flurry of racist feedback.
“When the hurricane struck in KZN, it was them. Every time there are folks in want, these folks from Reward of the Givers pitch up and so they provide their companies to anybody. Not simply Muslim folks,” he informed his 18,000 followers on TikTok. KZN is an abbreviation of KwaZulu-Natal, the second most populous province in South Africa.
Disinformation marketing campaign
The campaign in opposition to Sooliman has since gone quiet. However veteran South African journalist Ferial Haffajee, commenting on the marketing campaign, mentioned she had noticed a troubling pattern since South Africa took a stand in opposition to Israel on the International Court of Justice (ICJ): many outstanding South Africans have confronted vicious assaults.
“Many individuals who did that skilled hardship, disinformation campaigns, and even the lack of their jobs. In that context, there was an effort to besmirch the title of Dr Imtiaz Sooliman,” she mentioned, including that “they picked on the incorrect man. He’s a whole native hero and a world icon.”
Sooliman mentioned he believes the marketing campaign to discredit him was an effort to ship a chilling message to anybody who opposed the Israeli authorities and its supporters.
“If they might tackle the most important organisation in South Africa that has probably the most respect and break you down, it sends a message to different folks to not stand in opposition to them. It was to ship a message to different folks. It was to dam my funding,” he mentioned.
He was hardly bothered by the noise, confidently saying he knew that “they might fail”.
Sooliman additionally famous that, sarcastically, whereas the marketing campaign in opposition to him tried to make false hyperlinks between him and Hamas, throughout his years of labor in Palestine, he butted heads with the Gaza group as properly.
On an preliminary go to to Palestine in 2002, Sooliman mentioned he might have upset the Hamas management when he known as for Palestinian unity if ever the nation have been to realize liberation the best way South Africa did from apartheid.
“I don’t assume they have been too pleased with me,” he informed Al Jazeera.
On the time, he was on an support mission delivering medical provides to the occupied West Financial institution and assembly Palestinian chief Yasser Arafat. It took his organisation 12 weeks to avoid Israeli authorities obstructions and for the help to be delivered.
He remembers additionally upsetting different regional teams.
As soon as, he referred to the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah as “Hebushaitain” (the group of Devil) after they focused a hospital Reward of the Givers was working in in northern Syria, whereas additionally contending with the Free Syrian Military there throughout the nation’s civil warfare.
In Somalia, throughout an support journey within the early 2000s, Sooliman informed the armed group al-Shabab, which was interested by his actions within the space, that he was not there to take political sides however to assist the victims of the battle. “They allow us to do our work,” he mentioned.
Armed teams have allowed the work of Reward of the Givers to proceed on the understanding that “we’re not right here to decide on sides”, he mentioned, calling his impartial and neutral method his “recipe for achievement” on the work entrance.
‘Sincerity’ and solidarity
In the meantime, on the non-public entrance, Sooliman hardly takes holidays and stays intimately concerned in each facet of his organisation’s work, no matter scale.
“No matter we do, we supervise it absolutely. I get entangled. Most of my time goes to taking care of initiatives. I do know no different life. I’ve been doing this for 32 years,” he mentioned.
Sooliman had greater than 200 public engagements scheduled for 2024 – toggling between initiatives, public occasions, protest rallies, company occasions, fundraising and official authorities capabilities.
“My daughter says I stay on a airplane,” he joked.
He recalled that on the day of her marriage ceremony in December 2010, he needed to rush away from the festivities to urgently reply to floods in Soweto, south of Johannesburg.
“My home was stuffed with friends, I needed to get again to work.”
Every time his household persuades him to take a well-deserved break, a nationwide catastrophe appears to erupt, thwarting his plans. “Catastrophe enterprise is 12 months a 12 months,” he joked.
His efforts have fostered assist from various spiritual and cultural teams, in addition to civil society, journalists and the general public.
“There’s quite a lot of sincerity behind his actions. This sincerity touches the hearts of individuals. It attracts assist and fosters love,” Azhar Vadi, the pinnacle of Johannesburg-based nonprofit Salaam Basis, one other participant within the native support sector, mentioned of Sooliman.
For journalist Haffejee, Reward of the Givers’ solidarity “spans east to west, north to south”. The organisation “is my marker of what’s good on this planet and on this nation”, she mentioned.
Since Sooliman’s first support journey to Palestine in 2002, his group has steadily elevated its outreaches there. In 2009, Reward of the Givers responded to requires medical help after Israel focused besieged Gaza for 3 weeks. Sooliman led an support mission on the time, and once more when the 2014 warfare in Gaza occurred.
Because the genocide started in 2023, he has supplied help, together with facilitating $250,000 in medical gear to Gaza, which was sponsored by Aspen South Africa, and dealing to improve the al-Shifa Hospital; organising bakeries and serving to with desalination crops. The inspiration additionally helps Palestinian refugee households now in Egypt, and helps medical college students finishing their research in South Africa.
On the similar time, Sooliman has spoken out for Palestinian justice, together with doubling down on requires the warfare to finish and urging Israel to launch the pinnacle of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr Hussam Abu Safia.
Regardless of issues that the organisation’s different work might get affected by his outspoken stance on Palestine, Sooliman is set to not again down – and says it’s an method that has perhaps even helped them.
“Individuals have been calling, saying ‘What about company funding?’. I mentioned, ‘What about corporates? God funds the corporates; he can take it away at any time when he needs.’
“[Then] the alternative occurred: extra corporates got here with extra funding,” the fiery humanitarian mentioned.
