From the several months gone by, there lives an older brother (my husband's brother) the eldest and most organized son, a supportive husband, a selfless father, and once a hardworking electrical engineer named Raed (42 years old) and now his only job in Gaza is to protect and sustain his family.

My name is Ayaa. This is the story of Raed his wife Taghreed, his sons Abdullah, Omar, Rawad, and daughter Sajah. When we were deciding on establishing a method to evacuate everyone from Gaza by creation of a donation page made here in the U.S., the family's responses was bleak and despondent. They were subjugated to believe no help or any service would ever be issued forth to them. But I believed and explained there are many people of goodness embedded in their eyes, hearts, and minds here in the U.S who may be able to help......they seemed to have recollected their thoughts (Thank you Columbia University and many others).

The occupying-conflicted humanitarian crisis unfolding and increasing in Gaza affected our family members to have absence of any future to aspire for, and are left to roam around a trapped small piece of land to meet their daily basic needs of obtaining food and water while tying to avoid causalities and destruction. As a result physical and/or mental trauma is probable in such an environment and the consequence of no examination or resolution by any type of professional personnel is the ill-fated norm for most in Gaza (May God/Allah the Almighty Protect Them All).

{There are currently no functional health clinics or hospitals around to tend to their health state or any care in this particular region and finding one afar can lead to disastrous consequences).

Raed suffers from deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and he is the sole provider of the family who runs out to find food, gather wood or scraps for the fire, and tend to other essential manual labor work to meet their basic needs and survival. A long while back he was told by the doctors to avoid prolonged standing and take blood thinner medication to prevent clots or dislodges in the veins from forming. The necessary medication is not available and if the medication ever becomes available, it's unaffordable due to the inflated prices of food and medicine in all of Gaza. He has no choice of prolonged standing and 18 century (pre-electricity) manual labor work in which affects his quality of life.

The hard working ladies, Taghreed (38 years old) and Sajah (13 years old), are struggling with the hardships of tending to the daily demands of cooking, cleaning, and other handwork labor without cooking gas, electricity, or running water. Effortful alone of not being able to use the washing machine or stove in these past +200 days. The experience they must endure often without use of hygienic products have been described as unpleasant and bothersome. The sounds and senses of the bombardment reoccurring often nearby and the drone surveillances echoing in the polluted dusty gray skies remitting day-and-night, have only generated stress and anxiety with the greatest fear of being alive and having to be apart forever (May Allah the Almighty Protect Them).

The responsible young man, Abdullah (15 years old), who leads by example had 2 past appendix surgeries (first one in 2019 and second in 2022 both done incorrectly), has been experiencing a great deal of pain if his diet does not include whole grains or fresh fruit and vegetables. His diet is solely white bread (bleached flour) when available, and a lot of canned foods with added preservatives and chemicals causing his gut to be inflamed and for him to experience nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting. This has been frequently reoccurring throughout the past few months. Increase loss of weight has been a major effect, resulting to lack of energy and growth.

The patient young-ones Omar (9 years old) and Rawad (4 years old) have once always found enjoyment with a big company of children to create new games and challenges with very little resource of toys/games they had. Their eventful ideology have shifted after all these months to depression and have explained that other children's lives, schooling and enjoyment outside of Gaza mattered much more than their own. They are malnourished, without growth, and without stimulation or energy for any type of activity, so they rest often. The day-to-day mental trauma obscured constant hyperventilation from bombs going off nearby, resulting in the parents to act and transcend their bodies on top of the children as protection to avoid the ultimate terror of separating from one another (May the Almighty God/Allah Protect Them). "Our will to persevere in Gaza is for our children until safety is finally found" (translated), announced Taghreed in Arabic.

In the end, the chaotic crisis in Gaza seems to be there to stay, unfortunately.....but, hopefully, our families will not need to be.

To exit Gaza and find safety is the goal, and we've collectively as a family discussed and finally agreed to this initiative (Alhamdillah) to create a donation page.

The appreciation of reading our story and circulating this page around among family/friends/social media/emails/group chats is an extraordinary and much needed support system to help achieve our goal. Including any donations you would like to contribute is immensely gratifying by all means.

The Goal: The amount is $5000 for each person to cross the Rafah/Egypt Border into Egypt. The expected goal for evacuation is $25,000 for the whole family's exit from Gaza. We've raised the other remaining amount from our community in other form of payments here in NJ (May God/Allah be pleased with them all).

Thank and bless you for all your efforts.

The image (above) I've painted is dedicated to all the children in Gaza....In every darkness (destruction), there is a form of light in it's vicinity (a child being one with the rooted olive tree and it's beauty).

-Ayaa R