Hello, my name is Bronwyn. I live on the Sunshine Coast in Australia and have been in regular contact with Ibrahim Nada and his family in Gaza for over a year now. I have started this GoFundMe campaign to help raise funds for 37 year-old Ibrahim, his 30 year-old wife, Abeer, and their 9, 8 and 4 year-old sons in their ongoing fight for survival in bombed-out Gaza.

Ibrahim and Abeer have lost almost everything - they’ve lost many members of their extended families, countless friends and community members, their home and nearly all their belongings. They are living in a tent which is very cold at night and hot during the day. When it rains heavily their tent is soaked and their clothes and bedding drenched. They are experiencing great difficulty in procuring food, basic medicines and in keeping warm, especially as they move into winter. They are continuously hungry as they're rarely able to afford food and Israel is still blocking aid into Gaza. They’re struggling with various illnesses due to the poor levels of hygiene and sanitation in Gaza and the exorbitant prices and scarcity of medicine. In winter, they suffer unbearably with the cold as they have no means of heating and, with firewood and paper costing around $5 a kilo, can rarely afford to light a fire. And overlaying all of this is the constant anxiety about their safety and security, which as we all know is non-existent in Gaza!

As well as needing help to provide the immediate basics for their family, Ibrahim and Abeer now have little choice but to leave Gaza if they are to provide education and secure a future for their children. The older boys have been out of school for more than two years now. Ibrahim is a trained theatre nurse and is still working when he can, currently at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, the same hospital which Israel bombed in August and bombed again soon after as rescue crews were responding to the first strike. Ibrahim can sometimes score small items like a loaf of bread from the hospital, but hasn’t been paid a salary for over two years now. Abeer is a maths teacher and currently unable to work.

This family desperately needs some kindness from us. Even the smallest of donations will help. Donations will be secured in my Australian bank account and disbursed to Ibrahim as needed. Some banks have reopened in Gaza since the so-called ‘cease fire’. Ibrahim has an account with the Bank of Palestine, an international bank with branches in Gaza. Because GoFundMe will not allow direct donations into Gaza, I will be sending the money to a Palestinian friend of Ibrahim’s who is living in Europe and who also has a Bank of Palestine account, from which he will transfer the money to Ibrahim. It's a slightly convoluted but proven process. Small donations will all add up and help make a huge difference to the lives of this brave young family who against all odds are still clinging onto hope and sanity - just!

I’m sure many of you, like me, feel helpless to know what to do in the face of what we're seeing being done to Gaza. Hopefully, you will appreciate this small and practical way to help at least one family. Our combined efforts will assist them in their day-to-day struggle to survive.