Gaza emergency: Help evacuate my family in Gaza.

Hello, I am a Palestinian from Gaza living in Portland, OR. Organizing this fundraiser on behalf of my family members hoping to escape Gaza. We are trying to help my family in Gaza to be able to escape to Egypt in order to get to Australia. My grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins are all stuck in North Gaza in a church with no way to leave. They are four families whose lives were turned upside down and who have lost everything.

A few days after this Genocide started, my family was told to evacuate their homes in the Al Remal neighborhood. They were forced to leave with very short notice, so all they could take was what they could carry in their hands. They left with no extra clothes, no medications, and no food. My aunt, whose house was bombed in May of 2022, took in the other 15 people in our family into her rented home. A few days later, my Grandpa and uncle went to check up on their house, only to find it all leveled down.

The whole neighborhood was wiped out. Everything they had was gone from one press of a button. They were devastated. All of their memories, hopes, and dreams were crushed. A few days later, my family was told to evacuate for the second time from my aunt’s house. They all had to leave, but since there were no more houses to go to, the only place they could go was the St. Porphyrius church. They went there along with 400 Christians and sheltered in the church. They stayed there for a couple of weeks, and then one day, the church they were staying in all of a sudden bombed without a warning. Luckily, no one in my family was injured as the part of the church that was bombed was not the part they were staying in. However, 20 Christians were killed in this bombing, along with many more who were injured. Even though these 20 people weren’t family by blood, they were still family in our hearts, and the fact that they were murdered in such a brutal and savage way is devastating. My family is still staying in half of the church that wasn’t affected by the bombing because there is nowhere else to stay other than tents. They are limited to one small meal a day and one shower a week. They are sleeping on the floors, but no one can sleep since there is bombing everywhere around them. Even when there is no bombing, they can still hear the loud buzzing sound of the military planes above them, which would keep anyone who hears it awake. Along with everything, My grandma has diabetes and osteoporosis, so she can’t walk. She has to take her insulin medication along with many others; however, she has run out of many of her medications.

​​Here is the breakdown of how much money is needed:

Fees to cross the border from Gaza to Egypt: $127,500 ($7,500 per person as of December, will probably cost more now)

Plane ticket from Cairo to Sydney: $17,000 ($1,000 per person)

Rent in Sydney Australia: $8,000 for the first month (average rent of a 2 bedroom apartment is $2,000 and about 4 apartments will be needed for all four families)

TOTAL: $152,500

Our family has been working hard to gather funds for the journey but we need help to pay for their flights and expenses out of Gaza. We need your help to make this happen! 

Thank you for taking the time to read this!