Support Yara and her family in Gaza

*PLEASE READ* This fundraiser has been moved to chuffed.org

The new link is

https://chuffed.org/project/141684-support-yara-and-her-family-in-gaza

Hi, my name is Molly, from Ireland and I'm raising funds on behalf of Yara Dawoud and her family in Gaza, Palestine. Yara reached out to me online for support and we have been in correspondence throughout the extremely traumatic situation that has been unfolding for her people.

They are at risk of starvation due to the genocidal efforts of the Israeli state. All funds raised will go directly to the family so that they can sustain themselves and survive this atrocious situation.

Below is a message written by Yara:

These are the most difficult days in human history. Famine rules the Strip. Why all this?

With you is Yara, an outstanding Palestinian student stuck in a war zone. I am 18 years old.

Since that date, we have been witnessing shocks and pain. The war has cast its dark shadows and left us homeless, without security, without food, without freedom, without humanity, and without dignity.

Every moment we lose a relative and a part of our souls, which are inhabited by fear. The occupation destroyed our humble home and the most precious thing we own. With it went memories and a warm childhood.

My room, which I love, and my future hopes and ambitions, which I left on my desk. I hope we can rebuild it again.

It was built to reach the pinnacle of dreams, but this occupier destroyed it.

And erased it until it became nothing. I aspire to complete my studies abroad, and I can do so with your help, even if it is a little support for me and my family. I am an ambitious girl who excels in science and technology. I aspire to live in peace and complete my studies in the scientific field to which I belong.

My older brother, Yousef, is a quiet and brilliant student who always seeks for the best. He was supposed to finish high school, but the war shattered that dream and turned it to ashes. Yousef aspires to study mechanical engineering, especially since he is excellent in mathematics and physics, and he achieved an average of 99.8 in 11th grade in the scientific stream.

Each of us has a dream and ambition we seek to achieve despite the pain and war. I hope you look at us with compassion, just like students around the world.

We have rights, and the most important of them is our right to live in safety and our right to education… because continuing education here has become impossible in the land of battle — schools were destroyed, universities too, even hospitals…

I never imagined that one day I would write to you with a pen bleeding with blood and wounds because of what is happening to us.

I was displaced with my family more than six times, and we witnessed extremely miserable days — ones I wouldn’t wish on any human being. Who would want to see their family in such a miserable and terrifying situation?

This barbarian does not know the meaning of mercy or humanity at all!! We are innocent.

These days we are living — we are dying from hunger… not to mention the intense bombing that never stops, and the destruction surrounding us from every direction.

We sleep in fear, just to wake up to the arrival of the morning, while the occupation planes have not left the sky for a single moment!

We have lost so much and are still losing the ones we love — the souls of our children, women, youth, and elderly…

When will this nightmare end?

Now we own nothing but soulless bodies searching for safety — with no dream and no rights.

A tent is not a shelter for people in the heat of summer and the cold of winter while they are starving… this is not fair.

In the end, like any person and student in the world, I wish to rebuild my dream and become an example of a fighter who reaches that dream — it is the only hope in our lives, for me and Yousef.

Bring back a part of hope and being accepted into a scholarship guarantees us our education. because it is still being planted inside us despite all the hardships.

With your support and love, we will make it.

Thank you for listening — the conversation is long, and the wound is deep.

Your sister, Yara Moneer Dawoud from the land of Gaza, Palestine.

All funds raised will be going to the Dawoud family - Yara Moneer Rajab Dawoud, her two brothers Yousef and Mohammad, her little sister Mariam (pictured) and her parents Moneer and Mona