Dear friends,

After four months of steadfastness while facing the unspeakable violence of Israel’s bombing from the air, the sea, and the ground, let alone the forced starvation and displacement, my friend Amal Alhaj and her three children (Mira 19, Mohamad 17, and Amr 13) are seeking to evacuate Gaza through Egypt. The small house that Amal, a single mother, built for her children in central Gaza, near her mother’s home, is no longer safe. Amal’s mother— a refugee herself since the Nakba in 1948 — who recently turned her family’s house (80 square meters) into a shelter to host the “new” refugees, is under threat again.

In January, Amal was forced to evacuate her home and move south with her children. But it was impossible to locate a tent, so she had no choice but to move back to central Gaza. Upon return she found shells of rockets scattered around a plant that her mother had rescued from the yard of a neighbor, whose house was demolished in the last airstrike. Needless to say, the imminent threats to invade Rafah make moving back again to the south a deadly risk.

The bombardment shells by the rescued flower in Amal's yard, February 2024

In addition to having the same first name, Amal (hope in Arabic) and I share a quintessential Palestinian friendship. Together, but apart: separated by settler-colonial borders, check points, restricted movement, denied entries, the Apartheid Wall, and the Siege on Gaza. Our friendship began a few years ago when we became Facebook friends and noticed we had four friends and several "like" clicks in common. Amal liked my sporadic “Diaries of a Hedgehog Feminist” posts and I liked her frequently amusing posts about her adventures as a mother, an English teacher in an all-boys elementary school and life in Gaza as a woman of logic, as she often referred to herself. For the past four months, our mutual likes blossomed into a closer friendship as we continued to learn about each other with keen interest through WhatsApp despite the long distance, the time difference, the electricity and Internet outages in Gaza, and the livestreamed genocide. We have discussed random things that we have in common, like our shared love for Spanish and places with warm weather. We have forgiven each other for silly mistakes like typos and errors in case endings while typing quickly in Arabic. We also have discussed more serious things, such as the longevity of fear and the precarity of motherhood in Gaza. Apart from our daily check in messages, we have exchanged pictures of the avocado tree and the orange tree that my brother and her mother respectively planted at the beginning of the war. We have made a promise that one day we will eat from their fruits together.

On October 13, Amal posted the following message on Facebook: “News about disconnecting Gaza completely from the Internet. Many people will write. Probably, this is also the last time they could write or appear. We would be lying if we said that we are not afraid or terrorized or that we are ready for what is coming next, whether it is displacement, deportation, or death, regardless of how dark, unjust, and oppressive is the unknown.” Last week, Amal told me: “The shelling last night was so intense that I gathered all my three children in my lab and extended my hand as far as I could to comfort all of them at once. Who could hold them like this if I am killed tomorrow or if I lose a limb like so many others have already?! I must find a way to save my children.”

Amal with her children, Mira, Mohamad and Amr before October 7, 2023.

Amal’s wish to save her children did not cease. Her hopes that they will survive the genocide to achieve their dreams did not abate either. When she talks about these dreams, her voice is filled with a rush of vibrancy, joy, and pride. Mira, a talented writer-artist and an accomplished student who graduated from the science track in high school with a total grade of 98.9%, dreams to study biotechnology and genetics. Mohamad is passionate about computer programming and dreams of becoming a software engineer. Omar is enamored with soccer, people, and business. With his astute negotiation skills, he navigated the scarce food aid supply and was able to secure canned food items to feed not only his family, but also many other starving families in the neighborhood.

Mira's painting, "Numbers, but..." November 2023

The most updated evacuation fee ranges from $5,000 to $6,000 for a person above the age of 16 and $2500 for a person under the age of 16 — before processing and transport fees, and other registration expenses that must be paid to the coordination office in Cairo

Your support would be greatly appreciated. Any amount that you can contribute will help in saving Amal’s family.

With solidarity and hope!

Amal