Help My Family to Survive and Evacuate From Gaza

Team fundraiser

Rebecca Rashford and Yanis Hamad are organizing this fundraiser.

Donation protected

Hello,

My name is Rebecca Rashford and I am helping the Hamad family raise money to be able to evacuate Gaza in the midst of a genocide. Please donate what you can so we can help this family find safety together.

A message from the Yanis Hamad:

Although these days have not passed in love but have exhausted and burdened the heart, do we say "peace be upon you" when we are the ones who most desire peace? No matter, we will say "hello" because I am speaking to those who are truly human, who still believe that we are human beings who tire, face death, and suffer from a life that lacks life.

Dear reader, let me tell you my story and how I continue. Let your imagination run wild and live with me for a few minutes, and we’ll see how it affects your psyche.

I am Yanis Hamad from the Gaza Strip, from the city that was annihilated, Beit Hanoun. I studied a diploma in Agricultural Engineering at Al-Azhar University and studied E-Marketing at Al-Quds Open University. Unfortunately, I wasn’t as lucky as other graduates to work in my field of study. I have been accustomed to freelancing since I was 16 years old. I worked in a clothing store, an ice cream shop, a household goods store, a barbershop, and I cultivated the land to provide for my family, being the eldest son to a father who was consumed by that malignant disease that devoured his pure body. I worked hard to provide treatment for my father and tried to send him abroad, never imagining his loss in any way! But my efforts to help him survive were not enough to face our eternal enemy who committed a massacre against my sick father and my family. Let me tell you the details of the incident for those who still have humanity to read about our tragedy.

With the sunset in 2014, during an evening family gathering where we were trying to drown out the catastrophic sounds of rockets and shelling outside, I sat beside my father, speaking with a tone full of optimism about his improving health and our victory over this vile disease. But the occupier had another opinion. That evening, he decided to take away my beloved father and what remained of his health with a reconnaissance missile to threaten us by bombing the house, taking with him my elder sister, the flower of our home, and my uncles, grandmother, and uncle’s wife. My siblings, cousins, and I were all injured. Our entire family almost got wiped off the civil registry in an attempt to threaten us by bombing the house. I wonder, had they not issued this threat, what would have been the difference between what happened and what would have happened?

My dear father was martyred in my arms, beside my heart. His pure soul ascended to heaven, and with him ascended all my efforts to preserve what was left of his health. A thousand kisses and peace be upon his soul and theirs.

Continuing with my story, as I mentioned, I am the eldest son, and especially after that fateful incident, I had to take care of my family, consisting of my mother and my five siblings: Mohammed, Nancy, Dania, Kenan, and Rakan. Mohammed is studying abroad, Nancy and Dania are at university, and my wife is also part of our family. Kenan had the most severe injury among us, miraculously saved from certain death after traveling for treatment abroad, suffering nerve damage with some lingering effects on his body. As for Rakan, along with his physical injuries, he suffered psychologically from witnessing the martyrdom of our family before his small eyes, which caused a delay in his speech due to the shock of the horrifying scene.

After my father's passing, we rebuilt a family house at a cost of $45,000, and alongside my work here and there, I was able, thanks to God, to build a residential apartment to live in and start a family, which cost me $35,000. After five years, I opened my own business, a barbershop, at a cost of $6,000. But as usual, this occupier, who is accustomed to taking everything we have, left us with nothing but memories.

After trying to overcome this pain, my uncle Raed took my father’s place, providing us with moral and financial support, reuniting our family, and was God’s gift to our tired hearts. He was with me in building my own family, in my engagement, and in building my house, involved in every detail of my life. At some point, he too proposed to a girl and started a family, but in the 2021 war, my uncle, my second father, was taken away from us, that groom whom the angels escorted to heaven. I can never forget my sister Nancy's post about him: “They say the uncle is like a father, and I have become an orphan once again.”

After this incident, I got married and started my own family, and I now have a beautiful child, may God protect him. But since his birth, my child has been suffering from a hole in his heart, a medical condition called VSD. We had to keep a close watch on his tiny heart as it grew, hoping he would be in good health, God willing.

In this extermination and the war of death (2023), on the twentieth day of the war, the occupation forces destroyed my family's house and my house completely, leveling the place and destroying the infrastructure of my city, Beit Hanoun. A few days later, they destroyed my workplace, the barbershop I was running to provide a decent life for two families. Now, I no longer have a home, a job, or any means of survival, and I am unable to rise from beneath this catastrophe, while there are people depending on me to provide for them with the bare minimum to continue living.

On the first day of the war, we evacuated Beit Hanoun on foot at midnight after receiving the first threat message, with my young son, my mother, my wife, and my younger siblings crying behind me, heading into the unknown, only walking with the crowd until we ended up at a school in the Jabalia camp. After that, we moved to the Sheikh Radwan area, but the bombing of the Karama towers was so intense that glass fell on our heads, so we decided to evacuate to a shelter in the Al-Jalaa area. Later, the occupier dropped leaflets ordering us to go to the southern part of the Strip. Since our family had already tasted pain, we had to obey their damned orders and moved to a shelter in Rafah. We were shocked to hear about our grandfather’s passing in Deir al-Balah, but again we weren’t safe. Death visited us once more, forcing us to flee from a city where we had lived for seven months, ending up in a shelter in Deir al-Balah, sitting in a tent inside this shelter, with no amenities, with walls made only of our winter blankets.

We do not know what we will do in the coming days, and when winter comes again, how will we face it? I hope we will still be considered human beings when that time comes, and that we will have enough funds to survive, leave this place, and live abroad in a house with walls, a bathroom, and available water and electricity, where my family will be protected from heat and rain.

For that reason, I am trying this opportunity to help us live a dignified life and hope you will look upon us with humanity and assist in our campaign to reach the necessary amount of $45,000.

The permits and fees required to leave Gaza through the Rafah crossing to Egypt are $5,000 per person (8 people, which totals $40,000), plus $5,000 to ensure a dignified life for us abroad, covering shelter, food, and clothing in our early days.

Thank you so much for your attention, time, and feelings. You are not obligated to help, but we hope that you will assist us in escaping this death and living a dignified life worthy of us as human beings.