Help Diaa’s family evacuate from Gaza

Hello world, my name is Diaa Wadi and I’m organizing this campaign to bring my family to safety. I’m 26 years old, I was born and raised in Gaza and I’m a survivor of Gaza’s previous wars. I studied mechanical engineering and I write from time to time on topics such as literature, poetry, and essays on Gaza. Not long ago, I was working in Turkey, but I was let go from my job during this war and I’m now in South Africa, without a source of income, trying to save my family from the genocide they are facing.

I have a beautiful family, my mother Rania, my father Ashraf, and my four brave brothers, Bhaa, Alaa, Baraa, and Mohammed, my younger brothers who lost everything in this war, but have always tried to keep on going no matter what.

My grandfather, and my two grandmothers are in urgent need of evacuation. On my mother’s side, my grandfather suffers from heart disease and my grandmother has diabetes. On the other hand, my grandmother on my father’s side suffers from high blood pressure and had an artificial joint installed 4 years ago. Medication in Gaza is nearly obsolete, and my grandparents are suffering in every way imaginable.

Our family was brought up under extremely difficult circumstances, despite that, we’re a very loving and united family.

Life in Gaza is awful and cruel. Gaza has been a land of continuous wars. In each aggression, we would lose our home and rebuild it, but this war took everything from us. My father lost the properties he’d bought for our future, and we lost our first home, where we grew up. We also lost all of my father’s savings that were in our home after it was bombed. Even his land, we received news that it has now been turned to a military point. Everything is now gone forever. Ever since the war began, horrible events have been recurring, events that no one can handle. My family was displaced more than twenty times trying to escape death.

Yet our hearts remain warm and our souls pure, we search for hope and live on the memories that we wish would come back.

However, my family is facing horrific events which are difficult to describe. My brother Alaa is a survivor of the Baptist Hospital Massacre. He’s 17 years old and he miraculously survived death. He's in need of therapy and medical attention after witnessing the dismembered bodies and severed limbs around him. My mother, too, lost three of her siblings, and her family home is now replaced by a deep hole in the ground.

My mother, an avid learner, went back to university at 38 years old, to get her bachelor’s degree in Audiology and Speech Pathology, after she gave birth to her five children. My father is a liberated prisoner who spent 3 years in the Occupation’s prisons. Baraa is an excellent swimmer, he won first place at a prestigious swimming competition in Gaza. Mohammed won the Young Scientist Competition, solving difficult mathematical equations. Bhaa, who was always on top of his class, studied at the Islamic University, which is now completely destroyed. And Alaa is stubborn, his stubbornness is what got him through the Baptist Hospital Massacre and brought him back home.

My dreams and the dreams of my family, Bhaa, Alaa, Baraa, and Mohammed have all turned to one dream: for them to stay alive. My mother too, after once dreaming of completing her master’s degree, now only dreams of finding food for my siblings.

"I don’t want to survive, I want to live.” My brother Baraa has been saying this since day one of this war. Truly, we don’t just want to survive, we want to live, like all people around this world.

The donations you provide will help cover the cost of crossing the Rafah border ($9,000-$10,000 per person for 9 people), clothes and travel necessities from Egypt after crossing the border ($4,000), flight tickets to South Africa ($500 per person), and living expenses including rent, utilities, and other costs in South Africa ($10,000). The contract will cover 5 months of rent at $1,200 per month, in addition to $2,400 for insurance. Further expenses will cover furnishing the apartment and daily expenses.

All that we hope for is a safe home and a normal life. This is what my father wants, this is what my mother hopes for: a home that will bring us together once again just as we once were, under one roof.

What is happening to my family in Gaza is beyond any horrors imaginable. I might not be able to encapsulate into words the horrors of this war, but the news is in front of you on the screen, as clear as day. Words fail to describe the scenes which recur every day of this war. Life in Gaza has become impossible.

Because of your continuous support and the responsibility you feel towards my family, I decided to start this campaign, which aims to help evacuate my family outside of the Gaza Strip, so we can live, because we deserve a dignified life, and we deserve to march towards hope in spite of everything.

Your help means rescuing nine souls, each one filled with hope, love, and ambition. Your help means that we’re not just numbers, and that their lives matter and deserve to go on despite everything.

Thank you once again. Thank you for your love and support. I hope that I will soon share happier news about my family with your support.