Help Diana and her mother and 7 siblings rebuild their lives

Hi there

I'm asking for support to get Diana Alkolak and her family out of Gaza. I first met Diana when I started teaching her English through an online volunteer program. She wanted to improve her English so that she could get a job with an NGO to help her community. Before October 2023, Diana was living in her family home in Gaza city, had just started a new job with an NGO and was supporting her mother and 7 brothers and sisters. Just days after the war started, their house was bombed and they had to flee Gaza. They were displaced more than 7 times and had to shelter in tents, basements and out in the open air.

Now, in March 2025, one and a half years after the war began, they have finally been able to move back to Gaza and are sheltering in the remnants of their bombed house.

The family all sleep in one room. They have repaired the ceiling and the wall and have put covered the windows and door with nylon. They are trying to repair what they can daily, but everything is expensive which causes delays. The roof is zinc and because of the bombing it was destroyed and replacing it during the current period is very expensive. As a result, they have had water leaks due to the rainstorms. As a result, the ground is constantly damp.

In addition, there is no water tank, all of them were destroyed.. So they welded a tank, but because of the severity of the destruction and damage it is still leaking and this also makes the roof leak when it is filled.

Municipal water now reaches their street twice a week, so if they had a functioning water tank they would have access to running water.

Because the borders are still closed, food is very limited and the available food is extremely expensive.There is no type of meat or chicken.. And the price of vegetables increases daily.. Flour is also scarce.. Drinking water has become scarce because the desalination plants stopped pumping due to the power outages..They have no access to electricity and thus have problems with lighting and cant charge their phones. They have to send their mobile devices to a charging point daily at a price of 2 shekels per phone per day and 10 shekels for the battery for lighting. Since the beginning of the war, it has been forbidden to bring in electronics, power banks, solar panels, batteries and, as a result,their mobile devices have lost their efficiency. Diana's phone's battery doesn't last more than an hour a day, and that forces her to charge it more than once a day. She is trying to find a solar panel and a solar energy device with a capacity of one kilowatt to allow her to access electricity, even if only partially.

Diana has resumed her job at the NGO in Deir al-Balah but has to sleep in a hostel from Sunday to Thursday because of the high cost of transportation. The daily commute cost from Gaza to Deir al-Balah and back is about 70 shekels and now it is increasing because of the fuel ban and takes approximately an hour on the road and an hour each way. The road is full of potholes snd rubble. Because it is Ramadan at the moment and Diana is fasting, the journey us too strenuous and thus she stays in a hostel although it is costly.

Diana's story

Diana is 28 years old and the eldest of 8 brothers and sisters. Her passion is helping others and she has been involved in humanitarian work since she was a child. She volunteered and engaged in many initiatives to help children with cancer improve their emotional wellbeing and has also undertaken activating initiatives for children in schools, people with disabilities, thalassemia and kidney disease, and other initiatives to help members of her community.

Diana's house has been bombed and destroyed and her, her mother and 7 sisters and brothers are now, like millions of other Palestinians, homeless. (Her father sadly passed away a year ago from a heart attack.) Three of her brothers used to go to university. Now their universities have been destroyed and they have been forced to drop out. Her younger brothers’ schools have also been bombed and destroyed.

Diana and her family have been on the road for over a year moving from one place to the next, from northern to southern Gaza, with only the clothes on their backs. The blockade imposed by Israel has further exacerbated their plight, depriving them of basic human needs such as somewhere to sleep, clean drinking water and food.

They have endured hunger and thirst, and with the spread of infectious diseases and epidemics since October, they have witnessed more death and destruction than we can imagine. Diana and her family have spent many nights sleeping on the streets, facing imminent danger. They have heard bombs exploding day and night, have endured white phosphorus attacks, and have lost everything they own.

Hope for the future

Now that the war seems to be over, Diana and her family have a chance to try to rebuild their lives, but they need your help.

Why I decided to start the GoFundMe

In late 2023 when Diana told me that 100 people had died in her neighborhood the night before and they were clinging to their lives I asked what I could do to help. I'd already been sending money to UNICEF but unfortunately most of the time the trucks couldn't get through and then there wasn't enough for everyone. She said the only way they had a chance of surviving was to leave Gaza. And for that she needed to raise a lot of money to pay for the transport costs of getting them across the border. I had been feeling so helpless and didn't know what to do before, but with this at least I could try to help her. Unfortunately, they weren't able to leave Gaza because of the border closures, so they have decided instead to rebuild their family home and try to regain a semblance of the former lives.

Plea from Diana :

Your help transcends mere financial aid; it embodies solidarity, compassion amidst adversity, the essence of humanity, and a dedication to safeguarding precious lives. I implore you to join me in extending a lifeline to my family. I beseech you to stand in unity with us during this profound time in our existence.