Help me save my friend Ahmed from Gaza

This is Ahmed Abo Tair. He’s one of my closest friends. He had a normal suburban life, not so different from you and me. He lived in what used to be a neighborhood of Gaza, in Khan Younis, with his mom, dad, and his siblings, the youngest of whom are still children. He dreamed of being a programmer. He enjoyed hanging out with his friends after school, and he loved video games.

His life changed in October 2023. A war broke out in his country. They destroyed his home. They destroyed his university. They killed his dad.

I'm making this post to ask all of your help for him. My name is Mostafa Alabbasi, a Muslim-Canadian university student from Toronto, Ontario. I've tried every avenue to help him—this fundraiser is our only hope.

Ahmed and his family were displaced from their home at the start of the war. He had to leave everything he knew behind. He abandoned his school, he abandoned all his friends, he abandoned his laptop to collect dust behind him. Yet it would have been crueler to stay, because his entire city was leveled. You’ve all seen the news. A picture of his room is attached above. Khan Younis is a ruin. The first picture on this post is the University he dreamed of going to.

They made for Rafah. A large number of refugees headed there. What became of them? Rafah too has been attacked by the Israeli war effort. They attacked a city where refugees were hiding. They destroyed apartment buildings. They destroyed tents. They killed children.

There’s no real place for innocent civilians when war breaks out. Ahmed and his family moved from refugee camp to refugee camp, often on short notice. It was after one such move that his dad left to collect supplies they’d left behind in a hurry. There’s not a lot of food available for the people of Gaza. Aid was blocked for months. His dad had no choice. He was killed by a sniper on the way. He was a good man. He loved his family. He wanted to feed them. He wanted to live. He’ll never meet his grandchildren.

Ahmed is one of the most patient people I’ve ever known. I remember the shock I experienced when I learned of his father’s death. I, sitting in my warm, safe Toronto apartment, with everything I ever wanted at my disposal, felt paralyzed. I cannot imagine dealing with what Ahmed has been through. Yet he kept his head down, kept a prayer upon his tongue, and kept supporting his family as best as he could.

But the reality of the situation is this: there is no solution that individuals in Gaza can bring about. A ceasefire is an absolute necessity, but so far all attempts have been shot down. Innocent men, women, and children are being killed; thousands of lives are getting destroyed under Israeli airstrikes. History will realize the tragedy too late, as it always does, because every faction has lofty political ambitions, yet none of them seem to remember that these are human lives. They’re not numbers. They’re not statistics. They’re not footnotes in a high school history textbook. They’re people, each as valuable as you and me, each with hobbies, with hopes and dreams as real as yours and mine. If not for the luck of being born in a safe, first-world country, I could have been in Ahmed’s place. I would have had to bury my father, then leave him in the dirt and never see him again, to tell my children stories of how great a man their grandfather was, and lament they’ll only ever have stories. The thought continues to haunt me. An unbelievable resilience exists in the Palestinian people. I would not have the strength to bounce back like Ahmed has. There is no question of this.

They’re people, and they have no recourse.

With $10,000 I can get Ahmed out of Gaza. $10,000 is not a small amount of money. It’s a lot of money. Ahmed can’t afford it. I can’t afford it. But if we each contributed a small amount, we could save a human life. Every penny counts.

He’s an academic guy. He’s always dreamed of getting an education. I know he can do great things with it. Please help me not let his potential go to waste.

It would cost a lot more to get all his family out, but to even ask $10,000 is humbling to Ahmed’s modest nature. In fact, he is so hesitant to trouble you that he only agreed for us to make this fundraiser at my repeated insistence. I understand the hesitance. It’s a lot to ask of you all. However, with this money, he can establish himself in Egypt, and, from there, he can work to build up the money to get the rest of his family out by himself. He doesn’t want to ask for anything more than what is absolutely essential. If we pooled our contributions together, we could save him from Gaza for $10,000, and open the door for him to save his family afterward, his mother and his siblings.

Without our help, it could be him next who loses his life. Please help me save him.

You don’t have to be Arab. You don’t have to be Muslim. To see fathers being torn from their families, and wanting to stop it, you just have to be human.

With eternal gratitude,

Mostafa Alabbasi—

[Please feel free to send me any questions you have. I will endeavor to respond to all of them. We will also be posting receipts of everything on which the money is spent.]