Evacuate from Gaza: A Father’s Plea to Avoid Loss Again

Hello, my name is Hamza Al-Absi, a 32-year-old from Gaza.

I am a husband and a father of three children. Well, there were three, but I lost my eldest son, Osama, two years ago to leukemia (blood cancer). He deserved treatment for a year and a half, took his chemotherapy, fought the disease, and had a recovery period, but the disease returned, he had a strong relapse, and passed away. I couldn’t treat him again due to the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip, which even affected patients with urgent, serious conditions. They refused to treat him, and he died in the hands of his mother and beside his younger brother, Saif. My son could have been treated, but when his turn came to get the treatment, it was too late.

I cannot express the pain of losing an eldest son, and my wife still cries for him every day. It’s a continuous pain that never leaves us.

Since the beginning of the war, we have heard news of children being killed and seriously injured by the insane and savage bombing with rockets and shells, which has not stopped since the war began until today. But thank God, my wife and I and our dear children, “Saif, 3 years old,” and “Rita, one year old,” are still alive.

We were forced to evacuate our home at the beginning of the war against our will due to the intense bombing that our area was subjected to and the orders to evacuate the area and head to southern Gaza. Our house was bombed with war shells, leading to its destruction.

Our journey of displacement began, moving several times from one area to another, until we ended up in a tent in the “Tel al-Sultan” area in the city of “Rafah.” You can imagine how difficult life is in a tent. Everything is done with great difficulty; we are forced to use primitive methods to carry out daily tasks. Every day we light a fire to prepare food, and we struggle to provide water for drinking or bathing. Going to the bathroom is a suffering in itself for adults before children, in the absence of toilets suitable for human use.

The situation worsens with the arrival of summer and the rise in temperatures; the tent literally turns into a “sauna” during the day, especially since my little daughter Rita has started walking on the sand and suffers from pollution diseases, influenza, and other serious diseases that lead to hepatitis.

On top of all that, I lost my job at the beginning of the war and became unemployed due to the total power outage and the lack of internet connection most of the time. I face severe difficulty in providing for my family’s needs amid the crazy price hikes.

We have suffered enough and have been exposed to a lot of fear and panic in the past 7 months. The city of “Rafah” is now threatened with a ground invasion at any moment by the occupation, so I decided to travel and leave Gaza to save the lives of my wife and children.

Time is running out, and we need $15,000 to enable my wife and children to leave Gaza to Egypt via the Rafah land crossing as soon as possible, in addition to the costs of staying in Egypt for 6 months, estimated at ($6,000).

Asking for help is not easy at all, but we believe there is still good in this world. So, I hope you will help us save ourselves from killing and destruction and restore hope to our lives again. I have tasted the bitterness of loss once, and I do not want to taste it again.

We are grateful to everyone who will donate to us, and we appreciate your feelings and support for us.