biting and bruising and dirty knees

Please don’t skip 🙏

Hello friends ❤️

I’m Alaa from Gaza 🍉, 29 years old…

I’m here because I need your help. I once had a job and a home filled with love and warmth, but when the war came, I lost everything and became homeless. I lost the dearest part of my heart — my beloved husband Imad — due to the Israeli airstrikes 😭😭

At the time, I was carrying my baby girl in my womb. I went through the worst conditions and nearly lost her several times due to the situation, until she finally came into this world — my daughter Fatoum — and brought me hope and life again 🥹

But now, I fear losing her again due to the famine and suffering that is tearing through the hearts of our children. Please, I am helpless and all I want is to keep my daughter healthy.

She is just 16 months old 😭😭🙏

I’m only asking for help to provide her with diapers and milk. The price of one can of baby formula is $50 and it's barely available — extremely rare.

So please, no matter how small your donation is, it will help me keep my baby alive 🙏

I am a single mother facing all of life’s hardships alone — famine, lack of milk, diapers, and basic needs beyond just food and water 😭😭

Don’t turn away — try to help me. I don’t want anything but to save my baby 😭😭

Even a small donation will bring hope to my daughter’s heart. Be human 🙏

Dear friends, kind hearts, and everyone who has stood with us,

When I first opened my heart to the world and shared our story, I never imagined the amount of love and solidarity we would receive. Thanks to your incredible support, we’ve now reached $12,837—a milestone that brings real light to some very dark days.

From the deepest corners of my heart, thank you.

💔 A Journey of Loss, but Also of Strength

As many of you know, I’ve lost 25 of my loved ones during this devastating war. That grief lives with me every single day. It’s in the silence that once held laughter, in the empty spaces where we once gathered as a family.

But through your help, I’ve also felt something else: hope. And that hope is priceless.

“21/Oct/2023 Before It Reached Us: The Day Our Neighbor’s House Was Destroyed” A quiet moment of fear, filmed just before everything changed.

“22/Oct/2023 The Morning After: Our Family Home in Ruins” This is what was left behind after the bombing of our home.

🌿 What Life Looks Like for Us Now

Despite everything, we’re still here. Still surviving. Still hoping.

But things have only gotten harder.

The war has returned, more brutal than before—and for over a month now, Gaza has been completely sealed off. No food is coming in. No medical supplies. No aid. No trade. No one is allowed to leave, and no one is allowed to enter.

We’re trapped.

🏚 We live with the fear of tomorrow, every single day. Airstrikes, drones, and the uncertainty of what might happen next. 👨‍👩‍👧 Our family is forever changed—we haven’t just lost people; we’ve lost pieces of ourselves. 📉 Basic needs go unmet—even clean water feels like a luxury now. Medicines, if they exist at all, are unreachable.

And yet…

Your support reminds us that we’re not forgotten. It reminds us that someone, somewhere, is still listening. That someone still cares. That we’re not completely alone in this.

Every message. Every share. Every dollar. It tells us: You’re walking this road with us. And that gives us the strength to keep going.

💖 What You Can Do

If you’ve already donated—thank you beyond words. If you can share our story again, it could reach someone who can help.

Even $5 means warmth, comfort, and a chance to breathe a little easier.

✨ Why It All Matters

This isn’t just about reaching a fundraising goal. It’s about surviving war with dignity. It’s about believing in tomorrow. It’s about making sure my daughter grows up knowing that the world did not look away.

Thank you for your kindness, patience, and belief in our humanity. You’ve helped me find my voice—and I will use it to keep hope alive.

🙏 From the Heart: A Quiet Apology

There’s something I need to say—something that’s been on my heart for some time.

When I first began sharing our story, I didn’t know what the right way was. I was scared, grieving, and trying to protect my family in any way I could. I reached out to many people, hoping someone, anyone, would see us. In that process, I now realize I may have overstepped, and I might have made some feel overwhelmed.

If that happened, I am truly sorry.

Please believe me when I say it was never out of disregard or pushiness. It came from a place of fear—fear of being forgotten, fear of not being able to keep my family safe, fear of watching everything I love slip away in silence.

I’m learning as I go. I’ve slowed down. I’m more mindful now, trying to share our journey in a way that feels respectful of the space and hearts of those listening.

If my words ever came at the wrong time, or in the wrong way, I hope you can understand where they came from—and I hope you can forgive me.

Thank you for seeing past my mistakes. Thank you for still being here. It means more than I can ever explain.

Vetted by @gazavetters ( #309 )

Hello, my name is Nadin I’m from Gaza. I’m a graphic design graduate. I’m a wife. And now — I’m a mother.

I finished my design studies just before the war began. I had dreams of starting a small design studio, of making art that told stories. I used to think about colors, fonts, sketches. I used to think about the future.

Then the war came. And the future became something we tried to hold onto, moment by moment.

On October 22, 2023, I was pregnant when a missile destroyed my husband’s family home. 25 members of our family were killed — his mother, his siblings, his nieces and nephews, children. Entire branches of a family tree gone in seconds.

We were displaced twice after that. Everything we had disappeared — home, safety, routine, rest.

A few weeks later, I gave birth to our daughter. There was no crib. No stillness. No celebration.

But she came into the world quietly and beautifully. And in her eyes, I saw something I hadn’t felt in weeks: life that still wanted to grow.

Now, I spend my days holding her and trying to build a world around her that doesn’t shake with explosions.

We don’t know what comes next. There is no clear path. We are walking toward the unknown, step by step — with our daughter in our arms and hope as our guide.

🧡 How You Can Help

This is why I’m asking for support. Not for comfort — but for survival. To help care for one baby girl who entered the world after everything else collapsed.

If you can spare anything, it will help us:

Cover basic needs, so we can breathe and heal

Support a path toward even the smallest stability in a place that has none

My husband manages the donations securely through a U.S.-registered Stripe account. Everything is converted to USDT and exchanged here in Gaza. The rates are difficult — $100 becomes only 195 shekels (July 2025) — but we use every shekel carefully, with full transparency and documentation.

🎨 Sharing a Piece of Me

I want to share more than my need. Over the next few weeks, I’ll begin posting some of my graphic designs from before the war. They are pieces of who I was — and who I still am.

They may not be perfect, but they hold something real: my story before the silence, and my belief that beauty can still live alongside survival.

My name is Saja. I’m a wife, a mother, and a woman who once believed her story would be simple. I thought my days would be filled with watching my daughter grow — from her first smile to her first steps — surrounded by the small joys of everyday life.

But life had other plans.

War has returned to our home. Again. And once again, we find ourselves living under skies that never seem to rest.

There was a moment — a fragile, breathless moment — when the bombs paused and the world seemed to remember us. It gave us hope. We thought maybe, just maybe, we could start to rebuild. But now, we are back in the dark — hiding, holding on, praying.

I’m writing this not as someone seeking pity, but as a mother who has no other choice but to speak.

Imagine holding your baby in the middle of the night, not because she cried, but because the world outside roared too loud for either of you to sleep. Imagine whispering bedtime stories not to lull her into dreams, but to keep the fear from settling into her tiny bones.

This is my life.

This is my daughter’s life.

And even now — especially now — I believe in softness. I believe in kindness. Because when everything else is taken from you, hope becomes the most valuable thing you have.

Why I’m Reaching Out Our home has been damaged. Our lives changed. But through it all, my daughter wakes up every morning with a smile. She reaches for me with trust, with love, with faith that I will keep her safe.

That’s why I keep going.

I’ve launched a campaign to ask for help — not because it’s easy, but because silence is no longer an option. I am asking for support not just for me, but for my baby, and for the quiet strength of so many mothers like me who are fighting, every single day, to hold their families together.

How You Can Help: 🤍 Help us restore parts of our home so we can live with dignity 🤍 Support women and mothers in Gaza with access to care and resources 🤍 Keep the light of hope alive for a generation born in the shadows of war

💛 If you can, please support our journey here:

If you can’t give, please consider sharing. Your voice might be the reason someone else hears ours.

From My Heart to Yours Maybe our lives are worlds apart. Maybe you’ve never lived through war. But if you’ve ever held a child and wished the world could be better for them — then you understand more than you know.

I don’t want my daughter to grow up thinking the world turned away.

Please, if you’ve read this far — thank you. Thank you for seeing us. Thank you for caring. We are still here. Still hoping. Still holding on to every kind act like it’s a lifeline.

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🚨Urgent humanitarian appeal 🚨

Please don't ignore🙏🙏🇵🇸

Despite the temporary cessation of fire, I am still living in the tent because I found my house a pile of rubble 💔💔 You can imagine spending your whole life in a tent that does not protect from the cold of winter or the heat of summer

I am now about to give birth to my third child in the tent in the extreme cold and I fear he will die. Please help me 🙏🙏 Yesterday my tent was severely damaged by the wind and rain. Please help me rebuild my house and remove the rubble

Also, my husband still needs a lot of treatment and medicines that I cannot buy due to their high price💔. He also needs to travel to get an eye transplant and treat the nerves in his left hand😭. Please, I need your help and donation urgently Conditions are still very difficult in Gaza and there are no signs of a safe, warm life💔

Please donate what you can

Be hope and support us Please 🙏🙏

I can't find words to express the tragedy my family and I are living. Our dream has become to have a little food to live. Imagine living in the same circumstances as us, unable to provide a loaf of bread for your children. It's much harder than that. Please continue to support us financially by donating here, and morally by sharing and interacting. From the bottom of my heart, my family and I thank you all.❤️

The crossings are closed again‼️

We need your help, the situation is unsuitable and dangerous, we need your help, you are our last hope... Food, clothes, milk, and everything else has become expensive, and we are in the holy month of Ramadan...😭😔🤲

We want food to eat after fasting for 15 hours, nothing is like before... The prices are very expensive...😞

The elderly, our children, us... we all need food, drink, medicine, milk and winter clothes... We live in tents that do not protect us from the cold of winter. 🥶

Please help us... Any donation will save our lives and the lives of our children.🙏😭👶

Campaign Link ⬇️⬇️⬇️