URGENT: Help Rescue the Mortaja Family
Hani is organizing this fundraiser to help his brother (Ahmed) and their family safely cross the border into Egypt. Please donate and share. This is the link to the fundraising page.
The Family’s Situation in Ahmed’s Words (from GoFundMe)
“Five months into the war, I've come to realise that we need more than just one heart to bear all this devastation and more than one set of eyes to cry and mourn without restraint. Since the war began, disasters have continuously befallen us without respite.”
“We (my parents, myself, my brothers Mohammed, Salah and Mahdi, my sisters Shimaa and Walaa, my niece Mariam and my nephews Mahdi and Mohammed) have been displaced over thirteen times if my memory serves me right in recounting these instances. But my memory is even more adept at recalling the nights filled with cold and fear, fleeing from death, and emerging from the rubble with my family over and over again.”
“And each time that we miraculously survived, we lost a part of us, a piece of our hearts.”
“My mother, who lost her sister, nephews, and nieces, experienced a shocking blow. On the same day, she lost more than forty martyrs from her brothers' children and their offspring.”
“The latest loss was my cousin, an esteemed teacher and mentor to many. Amid the severe crisis and famine here in the north, he went in search of flour to feed his children and family but never returned, meeting his demise instead.”
“All of these losses didn't give us a chance to grieve properly or look at everything with a hopeful eye.”
“My father's health was already deteriorating due to chronic illnesses and recurrent strokes before the war. During the conflict, his condition worsened, having memory loss more often, and I suspect he has suffered another stroke (though we can't diagnose it due to the lack of medical staff in Gaza and overall lack of proper healthcare services). In war, cases are evaluated based on the priority of preserving life, without considering that the case being evaluated is a father with children who have big dreams.”
“My sister Shimaa, who has two little moons in the form of children, and a third born amid the war in harsh conditions that are beyond imagination, named Mohammad, symbolising our relatives and friends. This third child was born displaced from his home, in the biting cold, and now, two and a half months later, he still hasn't received the appropriate vaccinations like normal children do.”
“Those speaking to you now were not born as superheroes; they are ordinary humans. We go to our jobs, others go to learn, and we gather in the evening to talk about what the ordinary days bring us.”
“During the war, the universities where my siblings study and my father works were destroyed, and the jobs of my other siblings, who work in information technology, vanished into thin air.”
“All these events have had a physical and psychological impact on the family. My mother lost weight alongside losing more than eighty people from her family, her sisters. My father lost his health and his sanity, overwhelmed by grief.”
“My brothers and sisters lost what they lost, alongside surviving various incidents during the war, and others from the starving predators on the streets.”
“Therefore, it takes more than one heart and mind to comprehend and endure what transpired during the war.”
Please donate. Every little bit helps. If you cannot donate, I urge you to share this.
https://gofund.me/48eb39fd