![This Family Needs Your Help to Evacuate From Gaza](https://islamicneekah.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/THIS-FAMILY-NEEDS-YOUR-HELP-TO-EVACUATE-FROM-GAZA-BLACK-850x560.png)
This Family Needs Your Help to Evacuate From Gaza
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I have never seen or hugged Khadija, but I have known her for years.
We “met” virtually while working for the same online publication in an era that was uncertain for both of us. I’m a diaspora Palestinian whose grandparents survived the Nakba, she grew up in Gaza. In America, Donald Trump had just been elected, and there were talks of deportations, of Muslim “registries,” and of moving Israel’s Tel-Aviv embassy to Jerusalem. In Gaza, families were still reeling and rebuilding after the 2014 Israeli bombardment killed over 2,000 people, and Trump’s presidency and his cozying up to Zionists in America and abroad threatened the little stability Gaza had in 2016.
I knew the danger we were in inside America, the heightened awareness every visible Muslim walked around with, and I knew the danger was far greater to those in already weary Palestine.
Resilience is borne of hardship, but the people of Gaza were exuberant, vivacious, and inventive before the blockade, before the walls, before Israel.
I had never seen Gaza through the eyes of someone from Gaza, I had only ever seen the grainy footage of broken bodies and shattered buildings on the news during the 2nd intifada. As I started following Khadija on social media, I was finally able to see outside the pain and hardship of life in Gaza, and into the beauty and resilience of its people.
No, resilience isn’t the right word. Resilience is borne of hardship, but the people of Gaza were exuberant, vivacious, and inventive before the blockade, before the walls, before Israel. Khadija sent me videos she made, journeys through the oldest shops, restaurants, and beach hangouts in Gaza.
Her videos were so simple, so similar to the earliest Instagram reels from my own town. She was just a young woman living in a beautiful town on the Mediterranean, allowing me a glimpse into how she went shopping, how she spent Eid and Ramadan, and how hospitable and joyous the people of Gaza are, were, and always have been.
In my limited interactions with her, I was able to glimpse the hopes and dreams of a hardworking, fun-loving college student who had never been allowed outside of Gaza.
With the internet at her fingertips (most of the time, anyway) she had learned so much. She spoke and wrote in English incredibly well. She wanted to travel, to study, to keep making videos, to use her clever mind to find solutions to problems unique to Gaza. We talked about Gaza’s architecture, and how futuristic buildings could be made to catch, purify, and use water to grow food under the blockade while using solar panels for energy. I asked her about Gaza, and she asked me about America. She was fascinated at how geographically enormous this place is, and that you could drive for days and not stop or be stopped. She dreamed of being able to wander, to walk or drive or fly without stopping.
Sometimes we would lose contact as Israel cut power, cell service, or internet to Gaza, but eventually, I would receive the notification I was waiting for: “Alhamdulillah, we’re ok.”
Over the last eight years, I’ve periodically checked in on her, especially when Israel has decided to rain fire on Gaza. She could often hear the bombs, could feel them shake the ground, and rattle her windows. Sometimes we would lose contact as Israel cut power, cell service, or internet to Gaza, but eventually, I would receive the notification I was waiting for: “Alhamdulillah, we’re ok.”
After what I’m sure was an arduous process, Khadija was able to leave Gaza and study abroad. Things were looking up, not just for her, but for her family and friends. I’ve learned that no one ever really leaves Gaza. There are no Gazan expats, there are not even Gazan refugees. There are only Gazans who are temporarily away from home, and they carry Gaza with them wherever they go. The hopes, hardships, fears, and wishes of Gaza live in the chests of everyone who drew their first breath next to that sea. Khadija would go back, and bring knowledge, resources, money, and the benefit of new experiences back to her land and her people.
When I contacted Khadija after October 7, she was home. It was supposed to be temporary, just a visit, to celebrate having recently been married. After over two months of dodging bombs, losing her home and all her possessions, and being told over and over again to evacuate further and further south, Khadija made the heartbreaking decision, at the insistence of her family, to leave and go back to the country where she’d been studying.
Since that day, she’s been working to get them food, secure their shelter, and stay in constant contact to make sure they’re safe. Though she was able to send money, the situation has continued to devolve as Israel blocks aid trucks, pummels Gaza with bombs, rains down white phosphorus on an exposed civilian population, and destroys hospitals and infrastructure with the goal of completing its project of ethnically cleansing and colonizing Gaza.
It’s cold in Gaza. Shelters are tents made with blankets people carried from their homes, or tarps to keep the rain out if they’re lucky. And Khadija’s mother, little brothers, and husband are trapped there.
They know if they leave, Israel will try to settle their home and bar their return, but that doesn’t matter. As long as they live, Gaza lives. Remember, there are no Gazan expats, no refugees. There are only those who are waiting patiently and know they will return.
I asked Khadija to tell me about her brothers, who are young teenagers. Her youngest brother wants to be a dentist. It struck me that not many teenagers dream of being a dentist. American kids his age want to be famous, to be billionaires, to spend their days skateboarding and playing video games while raking in passive income through internet merch sales.
Not this kid. He dreams of being able to solve very real problems and see people smile back at him with healthy teeth. The people of Gaza are always smiling, he wants to be the one to make sure those smiles shine even brighter.
Her other brother, still in high school, has never been on an airplane. He wants to fly to travel and see the world. In his lifetime, he has never known Gaza without blockade or war. The only planes he’s ever seen are the kind that flies in low over his homeland with their droning engines to drop their payload of death and fly away with the souls of kids his age.
Raising money for Khadija’s family four months into Israel’s genocidal campaign is growing increasingly difficult, as is navigating the bureaucracy surrounding evacuating two adults and two minor children from what many won’t even acknowledge is a genocide.
Palestinians and allies who have already donated are tapped out. Organizations don’t donate to individuals, they fund the massive line of aid trucks that are being denied entry into Gaza. Every minute that Khadija and the friends she’s assembled to help her try to negotiate with government agencies and plead for donations or grants is a minute that her family spends with the looming threat of death by airstrike, sniper, starvation, or disease.
We need your help. Khadija needs your help. Her mom, her little brothers, and her new husband — they need your help.
Yes, some folks are able to donate more, others less, but every little bit counts. Every dollar, every cent, brings Khadija closer to reuniting with her family.
Please donate and help reunite this family of dreamers, to keep them safe until they can all return to a free Gaza.