Qatar first began funding Gaza in 2012, in conjunction with the rise to power of Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and has since sent more than $1 billion. But the Gaza Strip suffers from the world’s highest rate of unemployment and poverty, and Qatari money hasn’t reduced the decline. “To really address the humanitarian crisis, we need to find solutions, not just temporary relief,” says Yahya Qaoud, a political researcher with the Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Strategic Studies.

While Israeli and some Western media label Gaza Palestinians’ ongoing, six-week protest a “riot,” what visitors and participants see on the ground is completely different. The protests have become a theater for family-oriented cultural celebrations honoring the right of refugees to return to their lands. You encounter women cooking Bedouin bread, young men dancing dabka and children flying kites.