EMERGENCY!! HELP SAVE THE SUHAIB FAMILY & DILARA FAMILY

My name is Jessica Abdallah. I am from Brooklyn, New York and live in New Hampshire. What I know from these two places is, you show up when people need it.

Yesterday evening, a friend reached out to me terrified for his family who are still in the strip. He has been doing everything in his power to ensure the safety of not only himself but, the safety and survival of his family. Please take a few moments of your day to read their story, in their words.

We hesitated a lot before making this connection, but our sense of danger was approaching and increasing day after day, and our extreme fear for the rest of our families was what ultimately prompted us to resort to this method after I, Suhaib, suffered a broken spine and a small part of my spinal cord was damaged. When I woke up I felt alive again but was shocked by the martyrdom of my mother and the injury of my brother, Siraj, who survived a fractured skull and bleeding inside the brain.

My cousin Dilara fought death in a coma for 18 days. When she woke she was confronted with the shocking news that her mother, who was also pregnant with her brother, had been martyred.

My cousin Dilara and I decided to resort to appealing to the generosity of others to save what was left of our families

All that remains of my family is my father, my brother Siraj, who is injured, and my little sister Carmen. The only survivors of my cousin Dilara’s family are her father and sister Layan. After being separated from family that were able to get to treatment abroad, we were unable to communicate with them. When we were finally able to communicate, we discovered the suffering that they are experiencing.

Dilara and I wake up every day crying over their separation and fearing the loss of them as well due to the ongoing displacement, malnutrition, lack of potable water, and the abundance of diseases and epidemics.

Our difficult decision to ask for help, which we did not wish to resort to, came to ask for your help through this link due to the high costs inside Gaza and maintaining them after our parents’ income stopped due to the loss of their private place of work in the past period and the continuous displacement for a period of - eleven months - due to the war, where it stopped. Our parents’ sources of income, which they depended on, and the loss of many of our possessions in this war.

We were patient and endured in the hope of returning and repairing what the war destroyed, but unfortunately the war we are living in continues without stopping, and even if the war stops, we will need a lot of time to repair what it destroyed. All that remains for us now is our last attempt to help our families from the Gaza Strip build our lives, and continue our studies until complete calm returns to the Gaza Strip. We hope that you do not blame us because what happened to us is terrible. With your support and help, we can preserve and help our families. Thank you for your understanding.

The family who are receiving these funds are:

Mahmoud , 35 years old

His children: Layan , 11 years old Dilara, 9 years old

Ahmed, 38 years old

His children: Suhaib, 13 years old

Siraj, 10 years old

Carmen, 8 years old

Their children are the same age as my children.

For full transparency:

This fundraising campaign aims to raise money to keep their families alive in the Strip, to be able to buy necessities in such as food and water, to pay medical expenses and daily living costs for their family members, and to help them live in relative safety.

‎‏The money will be sent via Western Union.