Clean Shelter: Providing Shelter, Sanitation, and Water in Gaza

Sponsored by the Center on Forced Displacement, Boston University's Muslim, Arab, & Palestinian Alliance, and the Jewish Cultural Endowment at Boston University

Providing Shelter, Sanitation, and Water in Gaza: A conversation with the co-founders of Clean Shelter. Clean Shelter is a grassroots organization registered in Germany that delivers immediate relief to displaced communities in Gaza through essential sanitation and shelter solutions. Founded by Seba Abudaqa, a Palestinian from Gaza living between Munich and Cairo, and Tom Kellner, an Israeli based in Berlin, the organization focuses on concrete action on the ground, providing shelter, sanitation, and water. Since January 2024, Clean Shelter has established multiple IDP camps, installed water desalination units and constructed water infrastructure, and provided aid to more than 150,000 displaced people across Gaza.

“There’s something about Clean Shelter’s scrappy, straightforward approach — deliver water, build toilets — that feels particularly inspiring and reassuring in this chaotic moment of apocalyptic-seeming challenges. Abudaqa and Kellner are not trying to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They’re trying to make sure women have a clean, private place to pee.” –

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