Donate to Jenin and her family in southern Gaza

Hi, I’m Heidi, and I’ve started this campaign to fundraise for my friend Jenin and her family forcibly displaced to Khan Younis, Gaza.

A message from Jenin:

I‘m Jenin a 21-year-old and I am from Rafah, southern Gaza Strip.

From when I was young, I would hold my mom's hands and tell her about my dreams and plans for the future. I knew the road was not easy, but with adequate support from my family and friends, I was ready for the challenge.

I started to achieve my dreams when I got 94% in the scientific branch in the high school exam. Then I enrolled in the Faculty of Computer Engineering where I completed two years of a degree with excellence. I started my third year and became a step closer to graduating and a step closer to the plans that I have always dreamed of.

Until the morning of the seventh Saturday of October when the war ruthlessly ravaged the country. Bombing and destruction everywhere, days full of fear and loss in a sudden shocking moment without prior warning, war missiles came crashing into everything in their path.

Saturday afternoon 21/10/2023

Our house was bombed, my young brother Mohammad was martyred and my father was seriously injured, which led to him staying in the hospital for days, destroying our house and us becoming homeless.

My brother was 13. Mohammad or Hamuda the name he liked us call him. At the age of innocence and hope, Mohammad was not only my brother but my friend, companion, and support in this life. Mohammad's martyrdom was a shock in which all my hopes and dreams were shattered. I keep carrying this tragedy and it echoes in my heart every moment. The Arabic grammar didn't help me to lament him. Just my tears helped me......

I found myself torn between wanting to stay and looking for safety. I was forced to take refuge in an unused place while searching for shelter. We moved into one of our relatives’ houses after the shelling of our house. The war is still going on and destruction is going on everywhere.

Didn't you hear the proverb that says, "We only get to see you on occasion is proof that something has been missing for a long time and so on?” The basics of life - for example, water, electricity and gas - are only seen on occasion.

My home, which I didn't think I would ever lose, and which I had memories of my childhood and youth. I miss every inch of my private room, the kitchen of our house, and the salon where the family was meeting......I did not process the trauma of my brother Hamuda's death and the bombing of our house until the shock came from the bombing of my university. Now I have no brother, no house, no future. And my dreams and plans became a mirage that I couldn't catch up with.

But life doesn't give us time to rest as we wake up to the news of Rafah's invasion.

And here we go again. Where do we go? There's nowhere to go anymore. We have succeeded in providing a tent and setting it up in a camp for displaced persons. As time passes, life becomes like hell. Now my family and I live in a tent with no more than 4 metres of space and cannot even contain the lowest quality of life.

With the beginning of the summer, the tent has become more like an oven of heat intensity. I don't want to talk about living in a tent too much, but I'll mention a situation. Recently, we would wake up daily to a sound in one of the tents next to us. They found a snake in it.....

We pile our luggage next to our lost dreams. Our longing for my brother, who wasn't lucky enough to survive a rocket that came down over his head. We live a life of homelessness and starvation without choosing. We suffer from sunburn and bad nutrition, We drink from contaminated water that infects our stomach with diseases that we ignore to keep surviving.

All our dreams have become a safe house in a safe place where the occupation missiles do not reach.

What have we done to reap this destruction, fragmentation and displacement? We had a house, a dream and a future to plan. Our only guilt was to live on our land and not leave it to a merciless occupier.

We no longer have the hope of surviving and living a decent life. All because I dreamed like the rest of humans? Despite everything I've been through, I insist on getting my degree to secure a future for myself and my family. No matter how long I will stretch my energy from my brother.

I promised before he was killed that I would make my dreams come true.

After several personal failed attempts, my friend Heidi created this campaign to support me in rebuilding my home and surviving the genocide, completing my education and improving our living conditions.......”