**This campaign is organized on behalf my friend the Palestinian writer and poet Wesam Owida and his family, please read their story below:

Hello, our fellow humans.

We are a small family from Gaza Strip, Me Wesam, my wife, Reham, and our beautiful 16 years old son, Feras. Before the outbreak of this ongoing monstrous war on our strip, we were a family living peacefully in their home in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza city.

Tel al-Hawa, this nice serene neighborhood– which has been my home my whole life and later on continued to be our beloved home as a family– got carpet bombed in the early days of this nightmare. We have lost everything, our home, our neighbourhood, and every place we have ever walked into. Our son, Feras, lost his cherished guitar, drawings, and the coin collection he collected over the years. A lifetime of memories is now devastatingly shattered into rubble and dust.

We miraculously fled from one place to another since then. We had to walk on foot for hours to reach our current shelter in the southern region of Gaza Strip. My wife, Reham, is the most affected by all of this as she suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and severe degenerative hip joints. The exhausting months of flee and displacement and the lack of treatment aggravated her condition. She’s experiencing excruciating pain and gradually losing her mobility. The doctors advised us that she needs urgent joint replacement surgeries, which, unfortunately, even prior to the war, it wasn’t performable in Gaza due to the lack of the required equipment. I’ve tried many efforts to grant a permit for us to evacuate to Egypt, but we aren’t permitted to evacuate through the Rafah crossing (the only crossing out of Gaza) unless we have what called “coordination” with the Egyptian part which costs between $5000 - $7000 per individual.

It’s a hard decision for me to seek help through starting this campaign as it’s my responsibility as a husband and a father to take care of my family, but I’m completely helpless, I’ve lost everything, my car, my little savings, and nothing left to even sell in exchange for money. We are all tired, devastated, and can’t bear staying in this hell any longer. Your help is our last resort. I need to get my family to safety; to secure the treatment my wife desperately needs; to get my child out to live the life he deserves where he can go to school, play his guitar and live safely as any other child in the world.

Your generous support will be aimed to fund the cost of Reham’s surgeries estimated to be $25000 in addition to the cost of our evacuation through the Rafah crossing and our accommodation expenses until I get back on my feet.

P.s. If you would like to read my writings or get in contact with me, this is my Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/wesam.owida?mibextid=ZbWKwL

We deeply appreciate your help and support.