My name is Hiba Lubbad, and I live in London. I am setting up this fundraiser on behalf of my cousin, Amjad Lubbad, who has been separated from his family in Gaza since October 2023.

Just before October 7, Amjad happened to be outside Gaza. Since then, he has been unable to return, and our family is still in Gaza City — trapped, cut off, and surrounded by the IDF.

The costs of evacuation are extremely high, with fees per person reaching thousands of dollars, not including travel and basic resettlement expenses.

Your support will help:

Every contribution, no matter the size, brings them one step closer to safety and security. If you cannot donate, please share this fundraiser widely.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

With gratitude,

Hiba Lubbad.

On October 9, we left our home which was located near the Indonesian hospital in the north of Gaza after a night of heavy bombardment that was targeting the area. We survived that night miraculously, but our home has been destroyed and turned to rubble. We were forced to leave our belongings behind and escape to Beit Lahya on foot with our 85-year-old grandma whom we’ve had to take turns carrying, our 60-year-old father, and 10-year-old frightened sister and her cat.

Just days later, Beit Lahya was no longer a safe area, and the surrounding houses and mosques were targeted we had to escape again, this time to the South of Gaza where we spent the night on the street cold and scared hoping to find a shelter the next day. My family’s life savings went into building our home, and within moments, we found ourselves homeless, sleeping on the streets, haunted by the sounds of warplanes and death.

We later found a barren room for the nine of us to settle which at the time we saw as temporary. Unfortunately, that was the start of worsening conditions and new struggles for us, a struggle for electricity, a struggle for clean drinking water, a struggle for bread, a struggle for cooking gas, and struggles for our basic needs that became life-threatening and unbelievably costly to access. Due to the lack of our basic needs, we all started developing skin diseases, and my grandmother became physically and mentally shocked unable to talk or move for weeks. Lack of electricity meant we could hardly communicate with family abroad or check the news to understand our fate.

Again due to a threat to our current location and heavy bombardment near us, we were forced to move towards Rafah this time. In Rafah, we lived in a tent, enduring apocalyptic and nightmarish conditions that stripped us of our dignity and basic rights. We are still waiting for any glimmer of hope for the cessation of war, death, and destruction. We are once again in a state of displacement, having left Rafah towards the Mawasi area of Khan Younis on the coast, where people have crowded after the threats and evacuation of Rafah residents.

My grandmother, who has endured her second Nakba and is older than the state of Israel itself, has suffered immensely, both mentally and physically. She suffered a great deal of pain and since we lacked access to doctors and hospitals she passed away last week. All our grandmother yearned for was a sugar-filled cup of tea, but sugar was not accessible throughout the war. We fought long and hard to evacuate her and grant her modest wish of that cup of tea for the past 8 months, but we lost this battle and lost our dear grandmother to the Israeli-targeted dismantling of the healthcare system in Gaza.

We are exhausted and hopeless, having lost more than we can imagine. We seek nothing but safety and a night of sleep without the sound of warplanes and bullets.

We know many many many families in the same or even worse situations and the more funds we raise the more families we can help. Our lives were far from free or perfect before the war but at least we had our home and our dignity. That is all we ask your help for, a chance to escape and live in dignity. Thank you for your kindness and generosity.

All I want is to be reunited with my family; my mother and father who lost their house, which they spent 30 years saving for, Kinda, who is 10 years old, lost her cat and her school. And my older brother, Muhammad, whose workplace was demolished and whose apartment was destroyed.