Help Karam's family escape Gaza, Palestine

Hello, my name is Joslin and I have the honor of helping fund raise to get our first foreign exchange student and his family out of Gaza. A little back story: in 2018, on a whim, we decided to become a foreign-exchange-student host family. We had heard through Facebook about two teenage boys in Palestine who still needed host families for the 2018-2019 school year. We decided to host the kid from Gaza. In all honesty, we were pretty ignorant to the realities of his life. But we were so excited to learn about him and his culture. After his year here, we continued to keep in touch via social media, growing so much closer over the years. We watched him grow from a typical 16 year old guy into an enlightened young man. We always knew he was intelligent. He even taught himself how to play the piano (well) during his stay with us, but we had no way of knowing who he would become over the years. His devotion to community has been shaped by his love of philosophy. He has deep love and respect for all the people of the world. I have no doubt that someday he will do great things and continue to fulfill his devotion to bettering the lives of others. Over the last 4 months we have been in regular contact, though frequently disrupted by the war. Sometimes it is a simple "alive" message. At other times, we are able to exchange long messages back and forth about what is happening and how we can assist his family. And at times our messages get cut off due to nearby bombings and sudden loss of his internet connection. In the early days of the war, we would video-call tearful smiles and words of encouragement, all to the sounds of drones and bombs. Our hope is to get his family to safety and Karam back to our home in Seattle, to continue his education and become a permanent member of our family. Carson would love nothing more than to have his big brother home. But this is his story so I will let him take over....

Hey, this is Karam. You might know me from the time I spent in Seattle during my exchange year in 2019. I want to open up to you about what's been happening here in Gaza. It's been a whirlwind of emotions, and I think sharing our story might help shed some light on what life is like for families like mine amidst this conflict.

Let me paint you a picture of our family: there's my parents, strong and resilient despite everything they've been through. They've always been our rock, but now they're navigating a world where safety feels like a luxury. My sisters, Zaina and Judi, are 14 and 13 years old, respectively. They are stuck in this limbo between childhood and fear. They should be worrying about school and friends, not airstrikes and whether we'll have enough food to last us through the day.

And then there are my little twin siblings, Omar and Kenzi. They are 4 years old. Omar's usually full of energy, but these days he's restless. He can't sleep with the constant sound of explosions in the distance. And Kenzi, she's my little warrior. Born with health challenges, she's faced more than her fair share of struggles. She had many surgeries through the years, including an open-heart surgery. She has difficulties talking and moving. She is already 4 years old and can’t crawl yet. Kenzi and I recently had a severe sickness that we suspect is COVID-19. It has been very hard for us to recover because of the failing healthcare system and the scarcity of medicine. We have been sick for months and Kenzi isn’t showing any signs of recovery. She needs constant care — care that's hard to come by in a place where even basic necessities are scarce.

I was a Junior at University when everything here changed. I now have no proof of my credit hours or my scripts. My University has been destroyed by the bombing, and I don't know when I would be able to go back to school here in Gaza. I don't mind starting over — at all — if I can just get somewhere safe to continue my education.

In the first days of the conflict, we were trying to remain safe in our home where we had solar power and stored water. Our home was in Al Zahra, miles south of Gaza City but just a little north of Israel’s first evacuation boundary line. There was an elementary school and a high school across the street from our home, where more than 1,000 refugees from the north had gathered. As the conflict intensified, several airstrikes in our neighborhood forced us to heed the evacuation warnings and flee for the first time to Rafah. But the situation in Rafah was bleak even then. Food, water, and shelter were beyond scarce, and we were essentially trying to survive on the side of the road.

After several days without any resources, we made the hard decision to return to our home, which, at the time, was still standing. We weren’t home long. The airstrikes in our

neighborhood came ever closer, some mere yards away from our house. So we fled again, this time to an aunt’s house in Nusierat camp. We were there a few days, but heavy shelling in that region displaced us again. We had to leave our home in a hurry, with nothing but the clothes on our backs. It was chaos — a blur of sirens and shouts, of fear and desperation. We ended up back in Rafah, far from the life we once knew, just trying to make it through each day in one piece.

This time, we were able to shelter with my grandmother, just southeast of central Rafah, and north of the Rafah border crossing. But the airstrikes and bombing has continued to intensify. In early November, severe bombing near us caused significant damage to the building we were sheltering in. Parts of the roof caved in, exposing us to the colder, rainier weather that had developed.

Life here is hard. We're always on edge, never knowing when the next bomb will drop or if we'll have enough food to feed everyone. We have no running water or fuel. We cook over fire and are now completely dependent on what little comes into Gaza from the relief aid efforts. My mom, bless her heart, has celiac disease, and diabetes. Finding gluten-free flour for her has been essentially impossible. Grandma, too, has her own battles to face. She's broken, physically and emotionally, her pain palpable in every movement she makes. And yet, she soldiers on, a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. My mom and I have worked with the Catholic Relief Services to help provide aid. Some days serving 800 families with aid access.

Our days and nights are surrounded by constant sound. The incessant buzz of quadcopters, automatic fire, severe bombings, fighter jets, and the sounds of people searching for food and building shelters fill our days and nights. Most recently, the neighborhood we are in was the target of a massive airstrike on the night of Feb 11.

Over the last 4 months, we have lost cousins, my aunt, and many friends to the bombings, illnesses, and lack of medical care and resources. And we have witnessed horrors no one should ever be forced to endure.

My family and I were supposed to be evacuated in early January, but those plans feel through and that resource is no longer viable. Over the last 45 days, we all fell ill with what we suspect was COVID 19. There was no medial care or medicine to be found, and we all struggled with the illness for many weeks. In early Feb I was able to access medical care, received medication for my family and me. Some of us are doing better, but Kenze is not.

Through it all, we're holding onto hope. We're trying to raise enough money to get to Egypt, where there's safety, friends-of-friends who are ready and eager to help us survive, and a chance at a better life. We're clinging to that dream with everything we've got.

If you're reading this, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to listen to our story, to see the faces behind the headlines. We could really use your help right now. Even a small donation could make a world of difference for my family. So, if you can spare anything, please consider helping us out.

Thanks for being here. It means more than you know.