Help Our Friends Escape from Gaza

We are a small group of friends who have come together to fundraise on behalf of our friends in Gaza, Rawan and Abdullah. You may already know of Rawan and Abdullah if you have been following some of our previous fundraising efforts in Rafah, Gaza (you can check out @noorhadad5 on instagram to see some of our work). Our friends have been working tirelessly to help hundreds of families access food and critical supplies (like diapers and warm clothing), who have been displaced due to the brutal and relentless bombing. To know Rawan and Abdullah, is to know an unrelenting love for their country and their people. They love Palestine but it is clear that there are no safe places left in Gaza anymore, and their best chance at survival is to escape to Egypt through the Rafah Crossing.

The situation in the Gaza Strip continues to get more dangerous by the second, as Rafah becomes the next target. We are desperately trying to help our friends and their families to evacuate to safety in Egypt. Below are short messages Rawan and Abdullah wish to share with the world regarding the current situation.

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Rawan:

My entire house was bombed while my family and I were inside. I lost everyone, my mother, my father… everyone except my sister. We miraculously survived, but I was injured. We fled to our relatives but then there was a bombing next to them, so then we fled again to tents.. and now we sit in Rafah, all alone in the freezing cold and in the midst of heavy rain. We suffer from the lack of food, water, and the things that every girl needs like sanitary products. We suffer from everything really. We still suffer from loss and painful memories…we have lost everything that is precious. All that remains is sadness.

Now, everything is getting closer to Rafah, the bombing, the soldiers and everything.. nowhere is safe. I ask you for help in order for me and my sister to leave Gaza and go to Egypt. We ask you and we beg everyone, everyone who has a compassionate heart, to help us and support us by donating and participating. We have endured 125 days of bombing, death, and genocide. We have endured what no one can bear, and we have nothing left here in Gaza after we lost our home and our family.. I hope you can help us, please.. Please do not let us die. We want to survive and move to a safe place in Egypt.

Abdullah:

We are a beautiful, close-knit family, but the war has taken everything that we love away from us. We have lost so many relatives… we have seen people cut into pieces… it has been unbearable to witness this genocide. My mother and father are shaking from fear and from the terrifying sounds, and this breaks the heart. We endure unimaginable horrors— catastrophic days and nights of destruction, terror, bombing, and death. We do not want to die and to be killed in cold blood. We do not want our bodies to be found in pieces. We helped many people during these days of war, when they fled to Rafah but I now fear that if we do not flee soon, we will die in cold blood.

I am asking and begging you to provide assistance to me and my family so that we can leave Gaza to Egypt. We want to be in a safe and secure place, me, my mother, my father, my brother, and my sisters. We want to be able to stay together. We are a family that loves life and we have dreams and goals in this life, just like you. We have hearts, just like you. We want to live and to not die in cold blood. Only with your help will we escape this non-stop bombing and almost-certain death. We will remain indebted to you throughout our lives. We beg you not to let us die here. We need your help to stand with us. We beg you all to save us before it is too late.

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The funds being raised are for Rawan and her sister, and for Abdullah and his parents, brother, and sisters to evacuate into Egypt through the Rafah Crossing in order to survive this genocide. The costs below are estimates on the costs of needs for them.

$50,000 USD* (~67,000 CAD)- Asylum Fees

(~$8375 USD per person)

*Additional fees deducted by GoFundMe

The funds will be transferred to an account that will be made primarily for them and will be transferred through wire or money services. If the goal is not reached, all donations will be refunded per GoFundMe's current policy.

Our hearts bleed every day for our friends and their families. Rawan and Abdullah are in their 20’s just like us; they deserve to be able to pursue their hopes and dreams just as we can, but instead they have had to abandon their dreams in the hopes of survival.

We urge you to donate whatever you can spare; any and everything helps.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts,

Mariam, Nada, Noor, Simryn, and Vanessa