Help a Gazan family rebuild their life
I am Mohammed and I am a Palestinian living in Gaza with my beloved family, including my wife and three children who are 10, 18, and 19 years old, and my mother, who is 80 years old and is very sick. Our lives and everything we have built and loved has been devastated by the war, having lost our street, our work, and our home was badly damaged with no way to return to it under the current situation. All the familiar places that we’d known all our lives have been destroyed. Even the simple gift of going to school, my eldest’s university, has been destroyed. I cannot explain such a loss. So much of it is gone, completely destroyed. Every day is very difficult and overcast with an overwhelming sense of fear and uncertainty. All we wish is to be able to live when we’ve lost everything, and so we are asking of you to help us rebuild our lives when our land has been reduce to rubble, we’ve lost our home, our belongings, our educational institutions, and even the mere visions of the futures we had for ourselves and our kids.
We do not have the capacity any more than you do to endure such horrors. We, too, have our dreams and love for life, and we hold on to them even in this most terrifying time. Please help us to create a future for ourselves when we’ve lost everything and with everyday uncertain, so we can look unto tomorrow not just with fear, but with hope.
We humbly ask you to help donate anything if you can, and I would really appreciate it if you can share or donate to this GoFundMe. Thank you all so much.
About us:
Before, we lived in a beautiful home in Gaza City, and it was a space kept us warm and was filled with precious things - our furniture, photos, electronics, games for the kids - and all these things were embedded with memories of happiness, love and life. We enjoyed our social life, sports activities, and walking along the corniche of the Mediterranean Sea in Gaza.
However, we were forced to leave our city and our beloved home, displaced to another area and wit nothing it all. We had to abandon everything behind us, our home, our clothes, our shoes… We left everything we had to save ourselves.
Our lives have been paralyzed and broken, but we hold on to all of our dreams for the future and memories of joy. My eldest son was in his first year of college to study accounting in the university. He also played football and other sports at the YMCA in Gaza City and was active with the social activities there. During summer vacations, he was a leader in the Summer Camp for children.
My middle son liked playing basketball at YMCA and participating socially there, and he also loved to ride his bicycle.
My youngest son loves dinosaurs and enjoyed anything about them - toys, books, games, and shows showcasing dinosaurs made him very happy..He also likes swimming and playing football at YMCA.
I want to see my children experience joy and achieve their dreams. As a family, I want us all to be safe in our home together. The fear for tomorrow is gutting, and though we have already lost so much, we do not want to lose hope in the future. We only ask for help, if you can.
Life now:
Context:
Nowhere is safe in Gaza. Israel declared and imposed a “total siege” on Gaza, depriving 2.3 million Palestinians of water, food, fuel, medicine, and medical supplies, this occurring on top of a 17-year blockade, which before this war made approximately half of the people in Gaza food insecure and more than 80 percent reliant on humanitarian aid.
More than 60% of Palestinian homes have been destroyed in Gaza, directly affecting the ability to cook any food and making the territory uninhabitable. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has estimated that nearly 85% of Gaza's population — representing 1.9 million people — is internally displaced, including many who have been displaced multiple times, as families are forced to move repeatedly in search of safety. They face shortages of food, water, shelter and medicine. Hundreds of thousands have been driven into the southern town of Rafah, only had a population of 280,000 prior to this but is now sheltering nearly 1.9 million people, according to Human Rights Watch. Most are living in makeshift structures, tents, or out in the open, in the middle of winter with inadequate clothing and shelter to deal with the conditions.
In addition, farmland is being destroyed and is being blocked off, along with access to the sea, by the IOF. Approximately 22% of agricultural land, including orchards, greenhouses, and farmland in northern Gaza, has been razed by them. They have also reportedly destroyed approximately 70% of Gaza’s fishing fleet. Even with little humanitarian aid that has been allowed to enter, people still lack food and fuel to cook. Most bakeries are not operational, due to the lack of fuel, water, and wheat flour along with structural damage. Livestock are starving and unable to provide food or be a source of food and too have not been spared from air strikes and direct ammunition. Meanwhile, access to safe water continues to diminish while the healthcare system has collapsed due to the wide-spread destruction of hospitals, significantly heightening the spread of communicable diseases. Due to the mass displacement of over a million people, people are experiencing overcrowding and limited access to hygienic products, facilitating the contraction and spread of disease on top of a healthcare system already grappling with traumatic injuries, such as broken bones, amputations, and severe burns. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), only 13 out of 36 hospitals in Gaza are functional, but only partially; seven in the north and six in the south.i More than 300 health care professionals, including physician specialists, have been targeted and killed by the IOF.
Furthermore, the Gaza Strip has been under an electricity blackout, after the occupying force cut off the electricity supply, and fuel reserves for Gaza’s sole power plant were depleted. This is an impediment to people from seeking lifesaving services, as well as the aid community’s efforts to assess and to adequately respond to emergencies and the deepening humanitarian crisis.
“Currently every single person in Gaza is hungry, a quarter of the population are starving and struggling to find food and drinkable water, and famine is imminent. Pregnant women are not receiving adequate nutrition and healthcare, putting their lives at risk. In addition all children under five – 335,000 – are at high risk of severe malnutrition as the risk of famine conditions continues to increase, a whole generation is now in danger of suffering from stunting,” said the experts. Stunting occurs when young children’s growth is hampered due to lack of adequate nourishment and causes irreparable physical and cognitive impairments. This will undermine the learning capacity of an entire generation. According to UNICEF, almost all of Gaza’s 1.2 million children are in need of mental health and psychosocial support.