Emergency Fund to Help Our Family in Gaza

Salaam Hamad is organizing this fundraiser.

Donation protected

Introduction:

With the ongoing war happening in Gaza, our family - The Hamad Family - has found themselves constantly fleeing from place to place, with little to support and provide for themselves and their families. With their hometown being Beit Hanoun (the northern-most place in the Gaza strip), they had to endure many unbearable circumstances from losing their homes, to being deprived from of their most basic needs; their situation (as well as all of the people in the Gaza Strip) have only gotten worse.

We, like many others, were also affected by loss of family members since the early days of the war. I, the writer, have lost my beloved aunt Faheema Hamad during the early days of the war from an Israeli airstrike on the Jabalia refugee camp while she was out shopping in the market to get necessities for her family.

My mother has also lost a very dear and precious member of the family who was also a great person and a hero. My mother's cousin is the hero Hedaya Hamad, who was known as the Director of the Youth and Volunteers Deparment in Gaza for the Palestinian Red Crescent. She was killed by Israeli gunfire while she was helping people out at the Red Crescent's facility in Khan Younis.

And as such, we are kindly reaching out to you to help us out with funding our family's needs in Gaza. We are the Hamad Family residing in London, Ontario, Canada. We hope that God Almighty helps alleviate the suffering of our family and for all of the people of Gaza, and for this war to end as soon as possible.

(Images of the destroyed house of the Hamad family in Beit Hanoun)

How the funds will be used:

Your donation and funds will help provide needed necessities to our family who has been dispersed all over the Gaza Strip, from the North all the way to the south in Rafah.

We are also kindly requesting your support to help us provide funding to those of our family members whom we hope to see in Canada and join us under the Canadian Immigration Program of special measures for extended family in Gaza. More info here: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/israel-west-bank-gaza-2023/gaza-tr-measures.html

We have recently applied for our entire family under this program, and as such, fees and costs have been overwhelming and we require support to be able to accommodate and help our family in Gaza when the time comes to be able to cover the needed costs of reunifying them with us here in Canada. We will use the funds to cover essential items such as: paperwork, travel, medical care, and their initial settlement in Canada (Housing, food, etc.). These required funds are estimated to be around $50,000 CAD for our family whom we hope will reunite with us here in Canada.

More context:

As part of the Gaza Special Measures program by the Canadian Immigration, there are several stages to the process, we have applied for 57 of our family members (of whom we were able to apply for given the circumstances), and the IRCC was able to provide special codes to continue applications for their visas for only 16 of our family members in which we have applied for their visas, and now we are currently awaiting further instructions/response from the Canadian government and immigration. We are grateful for the Canadian government to give us this opportunity where our family can find a glimmer of hope and reunite with us here in Canada, your donation is not just about the funds only; it's about providing a a needed light of humanity in these very dark times for those in dire circumstances.

Your donations will be used appropriately and accordingly to fund and support the different avenues of this initiative, whether it's supporting our family already in Gaza to provide them with what they need to help them survive through this conflict, or supporting those of our family who will find a way to reunite with us here in Canada, we sincerely promise that not a single dime of your support will go to waste. We have previously lived in the Gaza Strip in the past, and have been able to leave to come to Canada back in 2009, and thus (although not to the same extent) we are familiar with the ongoing struggle and conflict of the daily life in the Gaza Strip.