A Lifeline of Hope: Help Our Family in Gaza

Hello everyone,

Thank you to everyone who has reached out to me and my family during this very difficult time.

To those who have donated and shared our fundraiser so far, we greatly appreciate your support.

On a positive note, I am very happy to announce that my father was able to exit Gaza into Egypt and he traveled to Canada on March 13 and is now safe and sound with our family.

However, we have many relatives still stuck in Gaza, none of them having citizenship in other countries. As such, the only way for them to leave Gaza is to obtain travel permits to be able to exit Gaza into Egypt.

Me and my family have decided to update this fundraiser in the hopes to ease the pain of our relatives in Gaza , who are facing hunger and starvation everyday, which becomes increasingly more challenging by the day, especially during the holy month of Ramadan.

Alhamdullilah our father has made it to Canada, but we require funding to help him reestablish himself here in Canada, as he has lost everything he owned in Gaza.

We are also looking to raise money to send to our relatives back home in Gaza, so they may afford to purchase food.

However, as the situation in Gaza is getting worse and worse by the day, we recognize that our family won’t survive under these circumstances for much longer and getting them out of Gaza is our primary objective.

As such, we have reviewed our total goal for our Gofundme from $65,000 to $350,000 CAD.

Breakdown is as follows.

$50,0000 for our father to establish himself in Canada. He has lost everything he owned in Gaza. We need money to be able to purchase him new clothes, hygiene products, medication etc. He is temporarily living with family here but eventually will require to get a place of his own. As such we require to help assist him cover his rent for the next 1-2 years.

$100,000 for us to send money back home to our families in Gaza so they may purchase food and other commodities necessary to survive and acquire some semblance of a quality of life. . Scarcity and inflation has rendered food completely unaffordable, with a single onion costing $2, a kilo of sugar is $20, and a bag of flour can reach $200.

$200,000 for us to assist in the evacuation of our relatives from Gaza. We have many aunts, uncles and cousins still stranded in Gaza. With them not having ties to other countries, no foreign official or policy will be able to save them. The only way to get them out of Gaza is to pay the expenses associated with obtaining permits to leave Gaza as well as crossing fees at Rafah, at the Egypt-Gaza border.

Our previous description and our father's story

With great sadness and sorrow, we’re reaching out to you to help our father, Salah Obeid, evacuate from Gaza.

Please understand that we have tried everything, and this is our very last resort. We will briefly explain his heart-wrenching story.

For the last 4 months, we had to bear witness to the atrocities happening in the Gaza strip and see the exodus and murder of our own family members. Our own father, who is a Canadian citizen, has been displaced several times throughout the course of this war alongside his wife Anhar and our sister Razan.

In December 2023, we contacted the Global Affairs Canada/SOS Team in Ottawa in the attempt to get all three of their names on the approved list of civilians to enter into Egypt. However only our sister was accepted and added to the list while our father and his wife were denied. It was not safe for our sister to cross on her own so our father sat tight with his wife and our sister in Khan Yunis.

As the situation intensified in Khan Yunis, it came to a point where we told our father to attempt to cross at the border anyway on the next batch of Canadians exiting, despite not having his or his wife’s names on the list. This was based on the recommendation that they would have a better chance of crossing if they were with other Canadians, although there were no guarantees.

They made it to the border and our sister was allowed passage into Egypt. Her mother Anhar was allowed to accompany her into Egypt on the basis that she is her legal guardian. However our father was denied entry into Egypt, due to the lack of effort made by the Canadian Government in securing the safety and security of its own citizens.

We began to see a pattern emerge, with families of other nationalities, whereby the children’s names were added to the list but eventually when the families made it to the border, they would make an exception only for the mothers. Mothers and children were allowed passage into Egypt, but the fathers would be held at the border until an ambassador of their country would come to the border to advocate for them on their behalf.

Our father was held at the border alongside Russian and Swedish gentlemen. Their wives and children were allowed passage into Egypt and they were held until the ambassadors of their own country would come. Their ambassadors came and went and these gentlemen were able to enter Egypt, while no Canadian ambassador came for our father.

Our father was held at the border for over 72 hours, with no proper bed to sleep on. Our father is 75 years old and suffers from diabetes and macular degeneration; he is legally blind. With no access to insulin to manage his blood sugar levels and the fatigue brought on from this entire ordeal, our father had collapsed at the border. The officials had called on for a doctor to tend to his needs and then eventually when they saw no Canadian ambassador come for him, they sent him back into Khan Yunis, where the indiscriminate aerial bombardments by the Israeli forces were still taking place with no end in sight.

A couple of days after our father was sent back into Khan Yunis, we received word that Canadian ambassadors were finally on the ground at the border. His wife, at this point in Egypt, arranged for a bus to pick up our father from Khan Yunis to take him to the Rafah border. However, when our father got to the border, the Canadian ambassadors were on the Egyptian side and they were being denied access to the Palestinian side of the border and vice versa for our father. He was turned away on the spot and was forced to take a bus back to Khan Yunis on his own.

Keep in mind he is legally blind, and when he was dropped off, he was lost in the streets and couldn’t even find his way back. By Allah’s will and mercy, a man found him and helped guide him back to the house in Khan Yunis.

The last time I heard our father’s voice was on January 9, 2024. Things began to get worse in Khan Yunis. Our father had decided to stay behind in Khan Yunis, despite the desperate pleas of the neighbours to accompany them to Rafah. Our father was exhausted and knew that the Occupying Forces would continue to move them from place to place and eventually get them concentrated in one area and continue with their ethnic cleansing and systematic genocide.

We had absolutely no knowledge about our father for a month, his whereabouts or whether or not he was still alive. We braced ourselves for the worst, while continuing to pray to Allah.

Finally in mid-February, we learned that our father is still alive. Our cousin coincidentally happened to see him in the streets of Khan Yunis and took him back to his home in Rafah. Our father has shared that the IOF had his entire house in Khan Yunis surrounded; they stormed his house and strip searched him. Then they took our father and did not allow him to take any of his papers, money or ID with him.

They then proceeded to use our father as a human shield as they went from house to house, kicking other Gazans out of their homes and forcing them to leave the area. Our father, who is sick and could barely walk now, was forced to walk in front of tanks and open doors for the IOF so if anything were to happen, our father would be the first to die.

Our father is now in Rafah and has finally had his first shower in over 40 days and is resting, but the emotional, physical and psychological effects from this entire ordeal have been devastating on him.

We have completely lost all hope of getting any support from our corrupt Canadian government, which has failed to protect its own citizens. We have done our very best and escalated his case to the highest levels of government officials and ambassadors in Ottawa, and the response has been nothing but deafening silence. We now have to resort to raising the funds to help him evacuate from Gaza.

In order to facilitate the evacuation of our father from Gaza into Egypt and help alleviate the suffering of the rest of the Obeid family members, we’re setting up a GoFundMe campaign to raise $65,000 CAD.

Here is the breakdown of the funds:

The ground incursion into Rafah is said to be starting on March 10th, just as the holy month of Ramadan will begin and we know it won’t happen before Rafah is “emptied” one way or another. Time really is of the essence.

We understand that most people are currently going through difficult financial times themselves. We truly appreciate your consideration of this plea for help. It would make a genuine difference in the lives of our loved ones.

Remember Allah’s words in the Noble Qur’an:

"and whoever saves the life of a person is as if he has saved the life of the whole of humankind." {5:32}

And the following beautiful hadith of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him:

"Whichever believer feeds a hungry believer , Allah feeds him from the fruits of Paradise on the Day of Resurrection. Whichever believer gives drink to a thirsty believer, Allah gives him to drink from the 'sealed nectar' on the Day of Resurrection. Whichever believer clothes a naked believer, Allah clothes him from the green garments of Paradise." {Jami` at-Tirmidhi 2449}

We want you to imagine with us the impact of your kindness. You are not just providing financial support, but a lifeline of hope. Your donation, no matter what amount, carries the power to transform despair into hope and empowerment.

You are offering compassion, solace, support, solidarity and a chance at a brighter future. We thank you for being the embodiment of empathy and for making such a profound difference in the lives of those yearning for safety, security and tranquility.

From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for taking the time to read our story and we appreciate any donation, no matter how small or large. Anything you are able to contribute to this GoFundMe would be appreciated, even if it is just your duaas.

Our greatest hope is to see our father again, alive and well, to alleviate the hunger and suffering of the rest of our family members.

Barak Allahu Feekum,

Fadi and the Obeid Family

Update: Alhamdullillah, we have received news that someone was able to retrieve the ID and papers of our father, and hence, he no longer needs a companion to travel with him. Hence, we have lowered the amounts needed for travel permits and expenses and have allocated the rest of the funds to go towards feeding the members of the Obeid relatives who are starving in Gaza.