Help us save our lives and our future, and continue our educ

Hello everyone,

‏I am Mohammad Mahisen, a young Palestinian from Gaza. I just graduated from high school last summer with a scientific branch with a GPA of 99.3, ranking third in the province.

‏I'm reaching out to you with a difficult request to help my family in Gaza survive, or more precisely, to not be killed in the Israeli airstrikes or to lack access to food, clean water, and healthcare. My sister, mother,father , and brothers are all trapped and in need of financial support to flee the war in Gaza immediately.

As an outstanding student, I was excited to join medical school, the specialty of my dreams, for which I had worked so hard. I was enthusiastic about what was coming and felt blessed. Two weeks before the war, I completed several courses related to the field, from first aid to medical terminology, in preparation for joining medical school at Al-Azhar University in Gaza.

‏Suddenly, on October 7th, my entire life changed course. I went from being an eager student to someone striving for survival for himself and his family

Here's a little about me and my family:

We spent most of our lives in Gaza, surviving more than four Israeli assaults before this war.

My mother works as a teacher in the Ministry of Education, and my father is a retired employee in the Palestinian police.

My older sister, Ameera, graduated this summer from dental school with a GPA of 89.55. She was at the beginning of her internship, working in several governmental and private clinics, and currently volunteers at agency clinics during the war to treat patients. She aspired to pursue a master's degree, but the war changed all her plans.

My younger sister, Dalia, is the most enthusiastic about work and learning. She is studying Software Engineering at Al-Azhar University, in her penultimate year with a GPA of 90.23. Dalia is a dedicated and eager learner who has undergone intensive technical training with Gaza Sky Geeks. She was on the verge of securing a real job as a back-end Laravel developer at a company, but the war came and destroyed everything. There is no available internet, electricity, or any means to continue.

Before the recent attacks on Gaza, her days were filled with attending lectures, working, and volunteering. She found her passion working for an amazing non-profit organization called Gaza Sky Geeks, specifically in a summer camp called Banat Geeks. There, she trained an annual cohort of 40 high school students to graduate with a strong foundation in Computer Science, most of whom were prepared to pursue Engineering studies and become part of the fast-growing tech ecosystem in Gaza. As a part of the same tech ecosystem herself, this drove her to work diligently to create a better future for our community and all those in Gaza.

My younger brother Karam was born during the 2014 war. We were also far from our home at that time. He has lived his entire life amidst conflict, from the very beginning until now, he has been living in war. He has never experienced a safe, peaceful, and normal life like other children around the world. He has been deprived of going to school, seeing his friends, playing football, and even of having proper, healthy meals.

In the meantime, Karam longs for his favorite restaurant and his favorite meal, the "taboon pizza". Every night, he sits beside my mother and reminisces about the places we used to take him and the meals he loved. He misses the days of school and his friends terribly. All of that has become a distant memory for him.

Since the start of the attack on Gaza after October 7th, my family has been forcibly displaced several times. First from Gaza City to Al-Zawayda in the south (Central Area), and now they are in Rafah, the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip. With the onset of attacks on Rafah, they have nowhere else to go in Gaza.

Currently, the situation has become so dangerous and dire that prices are up 10 times, food has become scarce and expensive, and drinkable water is barely available. They are facing extremely difficult conditions, lacking the essentials of life: food, clean water, and warmth in these harsh cold days. The situation worsens with the spread of diseases and scarcity of basic needs, rainy days, and the increasing risks due to continuous conflict and shelling around them. There is no safe place in Gaza - what the United Nations says is true!

The situation on the ground in Gaza is even more critical than what the media portrays. Every passing day, survivors of the bombing face new threats - lack of adequate housing, scarcity of food and clean water, poor sanitation facilities, and the spread of inevitable diseases.

I feel helpless. We have lost dear relatives and friends in Gaza. We have lost everything too. Our home is now rubble. We constantly remind ourselves that material possessions are not the most important. My family - my parents, my aunt, and her children - cannot stay in Gaza anymore. It's saddening to say so! We hope to return to Gaza someday, but for now, they need to leave to preserve their health and simply to stay alive.

This is where I turn to you, my friends, and my network of friends across the globe to give me and my family a glimmer of hope for the future. We hope to find a place for them to continue their studies and professional careers. Regardless of the amount, your support will have a significant impact on our lives and at this point may save our lives.

I thank you from the depths of my heart for your compassion and life-sustaining support.

Our warm home after destruction:

Our university and our dreams to graduate from it, and our future destroyed: