Help Adel and Hammoud from Gaza to start their new lives

Hi my name is Melanie and I live in England, I have come to know and love Adel and his little brother Hammoud from Gaza through their unique story telling of how their lives were devastatingly changed by the invasion by Israel and 8 months of destruction of their homeland.

Adel is 20 and he and his little brother Hammoud have had their home destroyed, schools, universities and everything else that they have known in their short lives.

After sharing their story they managed to raise enough money to pay the cruel and extortionate fines at the Rafah gate to flee to Egypt with some of their surviving family, leaving many other friends and family behind and at the hands of Israel’s brutality and genocide. Adel and his family, like many others are traumatised to know what is being done to those they left behind and have since lost family and friends close to them and wait for news for others.

In Egypt, they have found a small apartment to live but the money that they raised has mostly been spent on the charges Imposed by the travel company in order to leave (tens of thousands) and other money has been donated to their loved ones in Gaza. Adel and Hammoud now do not know how they will be able to avoid further displacement and homelessness as they can not afford to continue paying the living costs for a family of 6.

As it stands they are not granted visas to stay in Egypt, as with all of the Gazans who have fled, leaving them stateless and without any rights to work. They continue to be made to suffer even though physically they have left Gaza, the trauma continues and there is no way to plan for their future.

Adel had just started university when the war broke out and was studying media, he is now terrified of pursuing this interest as he has seen how journalists and their families have been targeted by Israel, so he dreams of returning to university somewhere in the world soon and studying something else where he can eventually graduate, lead a simple life and help his little brother and family.

Adel wanted to also say:

Hello dear donor, I am Adel Al Zaharna. I have two brothers and two sisters as well. We were living a beautiful life before October 7, studying, working, and spending a beautiful time with friends and family. And this day came that erased every moment we lived. We lost our first home and our second home, even our car and our workplace. We were truly left with nothing. We left for Egypt after living through more than 170 days of war.

Though we are so thankful that we have escaped Gaza, the suffering for us continues. Not only are we traumatised from what has happened and what we have lost and seen happen to those who love and leave behind, we do not know how to rebuild our lives.

We would love to work and provide for ourselves but at the moment that option is not being given to us in Egypt and we do not know from the start of each day how we will survive and build a new life.

I hope to return to university soon and help my family to have a chance of a normal life in the future, I do not know what we did to deserve this happening to us, we are good, hard working people and were happy before in Gaza.

Please if you can help us to worry less for our future by making a donation to help with rent, food and living costs, we will be very thankful to you.

Thank you for reading a little of our story.