My name is Bahaa Al-Din Abu Rabia. I am running this campaign on behalf of Shireen Nawaf Aziz, who is suffering from the war in Gaza. Today, I want to share with you what she and her family are going through in Gaza due to the destruction and difficult conditions they face.

I am writing to you from the heart of a refugee in his own city, where everything around us is collapsing – homes, dreams, even our faces – but we continue to move forward, because we know that there are hearts far away that still beat for us. In Gaza, we learn every day how to live with half a heart, half a home, half a life. But I try to hold on to what remains — my mother's voice despite her illness, the smell of bread, if I can find it.

Since the war returned, nothing is the same. Every day, we lose something — a home, a neighbour, or a part of our soul — and face hardships we cannot keep up with or adapt to. I ask you to be part of my survival, to help me protect my family and return to my pre-war life and work, while I try not to feel helpless in front of them despite all they have lost. We now count our loved ones as we count our breaths — for fear that one of them will suddenly be taken away.

The war has robbed us of our home, our security, our days, and my job at the beauty salon, which will never return. But it has not robbed us of our belief that there are hearts in this world that can help us stand again. Your donation today is not just money — it is a small door that opens onto survival.