My name is Rushen Abed, I am from Gaza and I was hesitant to put up this campaign at first, but after a conversation with my youngest son, his voice made me tremble with helplessness and I was broken. This is the only way I can do something to save my kids’ lives.

We are originally from Gaza City, but were forced to flee after our home was bombed. We were displaced in several places before we now settled in a rent almost damaged apartment in Gaza. We had to flee and stay in Rafah, living in a tent, with the possibility of being killed at any moment. We were exposed to fire and our tent was burned when the airstrike targeted the refugees tents in Mwasi Rafah, though they claimed it is a safe area. My older daughters always say that I am their best friend and the strongest woman they’ve ever seen, as I have been fighting cancer for years now and it is getting worse with the ongoing slaughter we are facing in The Gaza Strip. I have two sons and three daughters, three of which, Mahmoud, Anas and Shrooq - have recently graduated school and now are living through worst times of their life in a tent and are lacking all the proper facilities to live, even food and clean water. 

We were a target to airplanes and exposures several times and now we are all injured. 

My suffering has doubled as I am diagnosed with cancer and my new injuries make it worse for me to get recovered. I can’t find proper medication and I am trying hard to travel abroad to deliver treatment with my kids. 

It all began when our home was bombed in October. We managed to survive and find shelter in the south of the Gaza strip at my parents place, which has also been collapsed to the ground by airstrikes while my family were there. Emergency workers rescued my family from under the rubble, but they are now injured and with no means to receive medication or treatment. My Kids are growing now amid misery and I can’t just sit back and watch idly while they beg me to save them and help with the money necessary to travel outside of Gaza to recieve the medical treatment they all desperately need. Anas, my youngest son, thought I could do something, but that I didn’t want to. I felt helpless and useless. I still don’t know anything about the rest of our relatives who are in the north and facing starvation. The last news I had about them is that more than 20 people  of them were killed in an attack targeting the building they live in. People who know me, know that my small family is everything to me. I suffered hard to raise my family well. They are educated, smart and ambitious. They have plans and dreams to achieve. Without them I am totally alone and terrified in this huge world. I won’t call it travelling as it is more of saving a life that can maintain a better future to help my family live a good life. Apparently, I can’t just give up on them and watch them die. They are my LIFE.

This fund is going to help me evacuate from Gaza to Egypt and to hopefully provide the basic necessities we desperately need.