Grant Eben

On August 17th, the Irish embassy in Tel Aviv informed Zain's brother, Taha, who's been accepted for admission by the University of Limerick, that he has had his student visa application rejected by the Irish government. Tens of thousands of dollars had already been paid to the university for his first year of tuition and accommodation. Months of research and organizing preceded the preparation of his application. This news caused Taha to have an epileptic seizure. I had a panic attack. Taha's student visa application contained in it an English requirement waiver that was issued to him on May 26th on official university letterhead by an Assistant Dean at the University of Limerick. The university accepted him for admission and did not require him to demonstrate his English proficiency. Despite this, the official reviewing his application cited "Insufficient recognised level of English shown" as one of the reasons for his rejection. The Irish Department of Justice affords us two months to file an appeal of the rejection. With the start of the school year being September 7th at the University of Limerick, we effectively have much less time than that. I've been trying and failing to help with this appeal despite how expensive and difficult it is. Taha's application is 169 pages long. A huge portion of it is in French, which I don't understand. I'm told that part of the appeal process will cost around $3,500 USD. We also expect that appealing is extremely unlikely to succeed. Though, we must appeal this regardless. We must push back and let it be known that this rejection and its reasoning are an injustice. Zain's mother required additional hospitalization despite her seemingly successful recovery from her last surgeries. Zain had to get more expensive medication for treatment of a chronic stomach issue. Zain's youngest brother came down with appendicitis. Taha's girlfriend is currently undergoing followup medical care to prevent her from having both of her legs amputated. I've been trying to help Taha and his family evacuate Gaza for more than two years to anywhere that would take them. He and his loved ones have faced unbelievable danger over the past 35 months while they have waited for the Israeli military to stop denying them the ability to travel freely. They have faced starvation and dehydration by the Israeli military's occupation and blockade in Gaza and almost died several times by Israeli bombing, shelling, and gunfire.  The millions of people of Gaza are being annihilated in a slow, calculated, and methodical fashion. For 35 months most of them have been forced to live under tarps in a variety of weather conditions among mountains of rubble and trash and walk kilometers everyday just to access basic necessities like clean food and water. They are routinely denied access to the resources normally available to people elsewhere in the world. Medical care has been severely limited. What medicine exists is prohibitively expensive. My friend Taha volunteers at a pharmacy and is only paid in the medicine that he and his family require to treat their health complications from the environments they're exposed to and from the bombings they've personally survived. On top of that, the millions of innocents just like my friend and his family are discussed, accused, and labeled under the foulest terms in public discourse to justify their destitution and annihilation, to justify the denial of their human rights and dignity. The only people helping are like those who have donated to this fundraiser. But support has waned significantly again. This fundraiser continues to fail to raise enough money to cover this family's expenses. I continue to hemorrhage savings in order to make sure their living conditions are as bearable as possible. Please donate if you are able. If you're not able to donate, if you take away anything from this, let it urge you to show mercy to people. Care. Because there are too many merciless and bigoted people in this world who only care about their immediate surroundings, who only care about senseless paperwork, who have no qualms with allowing the people of Gaza to continue to endure endless injustice and abject suffering.