Help Nadi and his family to escape death

Hello, my name is Nadi Abusidu , 36 years old, Gaza.

I am posting this after months of contemplation and hesitation, with despair, now believing that this is our only option to survive. Constantly thinking about the responsibility I have, to protect my family.

In these very difficult times, we turn to you with the hope that your kindness will change everything for us.

Due to the current war on Gaza, the situation has become very bad. Our family faces challenges that push us to our limits, and we reach out, hoping for a glimmer of relief.

Gaza was our home, with all its joys and struggles, but now it is a matter of life and death.

My name is Nadi Abusidu. I am a 36 year old accounting graduate. I am married and live with my wife, children, and parents in northern Gaza.

My wife is Sally, 27.

I have a daughter and three sons:

Talin, 9 years old

Ashraf, 7 years old

Mohammed, 3 years old

Taym, 1.5 years old

My father, Ashraf, 63 years old, was a history teacher.

My mother, 56 years old, is the light and joy of our lives.

Our life was happy, living together. We were happy with what we had, but we were ambitious to become better.

My daughter Talin's ambition was to become a doctor.

Ashraf's ambition was to be a pilot, wishing to travel the world by air and sea.

As for Mohammed, he wanted to be a farmer.

And my little son, Tim, hadn't even been born yet.

Our life was perfect, with our love for each other and our possessions. With our small parties and birthdays, we invested every moment in joy, love, and happiness.

On the morning of October 7th, the day of the war, we woke up and were preparing breakfast. I was getting ready to go to work, and my daughter Talin was making her bed and getting ready to go to school with her brother Ashraf. Suddenly, the sound of shelling and artillery exploded. For a few moments, I felt my heart would stop beating from the intensity of the sound and the intensity of the terror. My children screamed, running from room to room, searching for us. They clung to me, their hearts pounding in their chests. Even the three cats felt as if they were going to go into shock from the intensity of the shelling.

Our house was made of tin. Rocket and artillery shrapnel would penetrate the tin and hit us. I was hit by shrapnel in my shoulder. As soon as my children saw my injury and the blood on my T-shirt, they started crying and screaming again. Sometimes they would come closer to me out of fear for me, and other times they would be frightened by the sight of blood on my body.

They rushed to their grandfather asking for help. My wife bandaged the wound to stop the bleeding. My father went out into the street to find a means of transportation, but he found nothing to do except take me to the hospital on foot, a distance of more than 2 kilometers. In the hospital, my injury was assessed as minor, and I sat for about 3 hours while they removed the shrapnel without anesthesia.

I knew nothing about my wife and children, and there was no internet connection. I returned home and found the children and their mother in a corner of the house, clinging to life. As soon as they saw me, life returned to them and they were reborn.

The war intensified and the occupation army asked us to move to the southern Gaza Strip and to evacuate the area where we lived. My strength collapsed and my children looked at me and their minds asked, “What is wrong with our father, the mountain that does not collapse?” But we refused to move and remained steadfast in the northern Gaza Strip.

Then I went out into the street and saw everyone screaming, carrying their children, fleeing from death into the unknown. I looked at where we would go. There was nowhere to go now. Everyone was under my responsibility, and I had to protect them. What should I do, oh God? I told them to pack their bags and leave. But how could I? I had no means of transportation, and with me was my wife, children, and elderly father and mother.

Lost among my children, some carrying their dreams and ambitions in their bags, others carrying their colors and sketchbooks. My pregnant wife's greatest concern was carrying the clothes of the exhausted fetus even before its birth. I searched for the bag containing my official documents and certificates. The sound of artillery approached, and shrapnel pierced the house's tin roof, and we screamed in fear.

When we wanted to leave, we found the bags were too many and we couldn't carry them all, so I told them to lighten their load, as the distance was long. Some of them left behind some of their clothes, some of them left behind some of their dreams and ambitions, and I left behind my childhood memories and fled my home and my neighborhood. I looked around at the people, some of them carrying their children, some carrying their hopes and running away. The road was full of stones, destroyed houses and uneven streets. My father sat resting with my children in his arms.

The shelling intensified, so we walked again to a place we did not know. The important thing was to escape death. After walking on foot for about 2.5 miles in the heat and exhaustion, and the children crying and seeing the dead and corpses, their hearts pounding with fear and anxiety, we reached the sea and found people sitting there, so we sat on the sand.

Then my wife screamed. It seems that the fetus felt the hardships of the life we live, so it wanted to appear to us and share our suffering. We went to the hospital, and there was a danger to the fetus from walking and carrying the fetal bag that she did not leave. Here, the doctor asked us to get medicine, and I did not know what to do. There was no pharmacy available, they were all closed. I walked in the streets crying, fearing for my wife and the fetus.

I couldn't find a pharmacy, so I went back to the hospital, begging the doctors and nurses to find another solution. I couldn't find the medicine. They said there was a solution, but it was too risky. I couldn't make a decision, and no one was with me except me and my mind, which had deserted me from the horror of what I was going through. I was sitting thinking about where my children, my father, and my mother would sleep, and I didn't know what to do. Here, my wife gave birth, and my son, “Tim", saw life. My wife stayed in the hospital, and I went to my children, my father, and my mother.

I started collecting as much cloth as I could for my children, my father and my mother to sleep on and to cover them from the cold sea.

The siege began, and the suffering began: our struggle with food, drink, diapers, and my baby Tim's milk. We lived all day on a piece of bread. Drinking water was scarce, and we were living in true famine. The famine was wearing me and my family down. The children were crying from hunger, asking, "What is our sin?" We were displaced several times, fleeing from one place to another in our canvas tents. They bombed our neighborhood, and a piece of shrapnel fell on my son Mohammed, severing the tips of his fingers.

We were being displaced daily to other places due to the intensity of the bombing and violent raids that were increasing in every area. We were displaced from the most dangerous areas to others in search of safety.

My father stumbled on the road and broke his joint. At the hospital, they said it was unavailable and that we should take my father and return to him another time. There were more difficult cases, and we couldn't do anything for your father.

Here I didn't know what to do, so I asked some young men to help me transport my father because he couldn't walk. When I wanted to put him in the car, I found that I had lost my wallet. I didn't know what to do. I didn't have any money with me. My father and I stayed in the hospital corridors. Then I left and went to see my mother, my children, my wife, and the baby. I sat them down in a place and made a tent out of cloth. My children were crying from the hunger that was tearing their stomachs apart. I promised them that I would come back with food.

But I lost my wallet and money, so I started going around to my relatives to feed my children, my father and mother.

Baby Tim grew up in the shadow of war. Due to the lack of food, we found that he had soft bones and bowed feet. We could not do anything for him.

The ordeal of carrying water for personal hygiene began. I would carry it for miles, and my children would go searching for drinking water in the streets until they found a water distribution point. They would also search for a free food distribution point, and sometimes they would return heartbroken and without food. I would work collecting wood for them to cook with and looking for work to support them. There was a lot of suffering, fear, cold, homelessness, and hunger.

We adults used to sleep without food in order to feed the children because they could not bear the hunger.

Despair creeps into my heart when I look at my hungry children, their tattered clothes, and I am unable to do anything for them.

We begin to dream of the life we had and the happiness we had before the war stole it from us, before it stole our ambitions, our hopes, and our beautiful days.

My children remained year after year without education or school, and they missed a year and a half of school. My children dream of school, their hopes and ambitions, and in the shadow of the war, I was unable to provide them with the most basic means of living.

Whoever feeds my children and gives them life, I will give him my life only for the sake of my children, my father and my mother.

I hope you will support me and help me for the sake of my young children and my elderly father and mother to stay alive.

I dream of better days for me, my children, my father and mother. I dream of them reaching safety, and that we can rebuild our lives together outside of Gaza.

We ask for your help and support to get out of Gaza and reach safety. Your donations and contributions will help our family survive and save us from this danger.

Mazen Abusidu organized this donation campaign on my behalf. He is a trusted relative who will send us the money in due course.

Your help could mean everything to us. Your donation will not just be money; It will be a lifeline, giving us a chance to find safety and a little peace in the midst of this chaos.

This is our last option, and there is nothing else we can do, to live again.

Thank you very much, I appreciate your help and interest.

Welcome,

Nadi Abusidu