Help Yousef Zeino's Family Survive and Evacuate

Hello, my name is Abby. I’m an American living in California. I connected with Mahmoud, a member of this family, online and am organizing this fundraiser for their survival.

On January 29, 2024 the Palestinian Red Crescent, the international Red Cross organization in Gaza, received a call from a five year old Hind Rajab and her fifteen year old cousin trapped in a car surrounded by Israeli tanks. Their other family members in the car had already been shot dead by IOF soldiers. Hind’s fifteen-year-old cousin bled out during the phone call while Hind pleaded with the hotline operators to save her.

The Red Crescent coordinated with the Israeli military to send an ambulance with two paramedics to Hind’s location. However, when the ambulance arrived at Hind’s location, it fired upon by the Israeli tanks and completely destroyed, killing both paramedics.

This fundraiser is for the family of one of those paramedics, 35 year old Yousef Zeino. Yousef began working as a paramedic in 2010. He worked through four wars in 2012, 2014, 2021, and 2023. In 2014 he sustained a head injury while evacuating the dead from the Shujaiya Massacre which killed over 400 people. In 2018, he injured his hand in the Great March of Return.

In 2013, Yousef married his wife, Asmaa. He and Asmaa had five beautiful children: ten year old Raghad, eight year old Abed al Rahmen, six year old Ameer, and two year old twin girls Rafeef and Razan. His family described him as a joyful and caring man. He worked with a smile on his face, helping the sick and injured and working in his family’s sweets shop during the holidays.

For twelve days after Yousef attempted to rescue Hind, no one heard anything from him or his partner. It wasn’t until the occupation army withdrew from the area that anyone could confirm their deaths and the deaths of Hind and her family members. The ambulance was fired upon by the tank at such close range that all that could be recovered of Yousef and his partner was a single skull and spine.

Here is a post from the Palestinian Red Crescent showing that Yousef was indeed one of the paramedics who lost his life attempting to rescue Hind Rajab. His friend and partner Ahmed Al-Madhoun was also martyred during the mission.

Link to FB video

Without Yousef, his extended family struggles to support his wife and five children, especially under the harsh conditions of genocide. Their sweets workshop is in a heavily bombarded area, which no one can reach, but it is most likely destroyed. The family has lost its sources of income and are currently living in a tent.

The family consists of twelve members: Yousef’s father Abed al Raman who is 56, his mother Nazira who is 55, his brother Mahmoud who is 26, his three sisters Esraa Alaa and Ameera who are 30, 27, and 22, and his wife and five children.

Like everyone in Gaza they suffer from exposure, malnutrition, lack of hygiene, and lack of healthcare. Anything you donate will be used to meet their basic needs for survival, and to coordinate their evacuation when the border to Egypt reopens. I have set the initial goal of this fundraiser at $60,000 as this represents the cost solely to evacuate the family, but I will raise it when appropriate as the family uses the donations for their basic needs.

I will be transferring the funds raised here directly to a trusted family friend of the Zeino's who is in Gaza and able to accept money transfers. A small portion of these funds may be used for transfer fees, taxes, and duties in the course of sending the money to the Zeino family.