I would like to tell you about the story of my friend, @alaaser3, and his family, and of the tremendous difficulties they have faced because of the brutal attacks on Gaza.
His family consists of him, Alaa Alseer (20 years old), his father Raed (47), his mother Rima (45), his sister Ola (16), and his brother Bhaa (14).
Before the occupation began its attacks on Gaza on October 7th, theirs was a normal life.
The family had a beautiful house, and the siblings were dedicated to study, with Ola dreaming of studying medicine, Bhaa being passionate about playing soccer, and Alaa himself having great interest for the Internet, both studying it and working with it.
Of course, that was before October 7th.
They were forced out of their houses by the occupation, in what was just one of fourteen displacements they were made to endure during the course of the war on Gaza, and if you have spoken to as much as a single Gazan in here or anywhere else, you know that that is just the tip of the iceberg.
The house they were forced to flee, their father's car, and everything they had built until that fateful day? All destroyed, and they had to resort to living in tents to have anywhere to live in at all.
Tents which meant trading comfortable floors for a ground made of sand, and even worse, meant trading strong walls for weak covers, coverings which, with the arrival of winter, of the harsh cold and of the rain, put them in a terrible position, as the weak tents, having worn out, are little good for protecting them from the weather, which still mercilessly attacks Gazans, leaving them in fear even as the military assaults have stopped.
The wearing out of the tents poses a struggle not just because of the great threat it adds into their daily life of survival, but because the covers needed to repair the tents are absurdly expensive.
The situation of the covers is far from an exception. With Gaza having been mercilessly destroyed, its people, people like Alaa and his family, are not just left homeless and in constant fear of attacks, but are also being charged enormously high prices for things all of us cannot possibly live without.
Food, water, clothes, medications. All taking an intolerably long time to get more of, right when they need all of it more than ever. Rima, in one of her posts, tells that prices have gotten to twenty times the normal, and that post was made a month ago.
And the worst of all is that the fear, hunger, cold, and the taking away of their homes and dreams, is not where the torment they are being subjected to ends.
Ola's beautiful cat, Bella, died after their last displacement from Rafah, after a long time spent terrified of the sounds of bombs along with Ola.
Bhaa, passionate about football, suffered a broken arm during one of their displacements, and after a hospital visit, a knee pain was revealed to be the result of extra bones in his body. An operation was done, but outside of Palestine, and the family does not have the costs for the necessary treatment.
Rima, too, suffers greatly because of the war, the disappearance of medications from Gaza having left her on her own in her struggle against heart disease, nerve disease, and chronic headaches, due to the lack of painkillers.
And most terrible of all is the critical situation of Raed, which is what made Alaa contact me in the first place to ask for help.
Raed, wanting to do good to his fellow Gazans in a moment of such great need, worked hard during the beginning of the war to help bring the injured those crushed by rubble to hospital for treatment, only for him to suffer a terrible injury himself.
His feet and left hand were injured, and he also needed treatment outside of Palestine. Not just any treatment, but four operations, and even then, the situation remains incredibly serious, with even a single operation being very expensive by itself, and much help still being needed for him to recover get back on his feet.
With both of his parents having been hit so hard by the war, Alaa is now the one having to take care of the family, and it has been every bit as hard as you can imagine, and even more. He needs a whole lot of help, his whole family does.
As such, please donate whatever you can to them. Their donation link is this one, and everything you can give counts. They are at only 9% of their 30,000 pound goal, having gotten 75 pounds in the last day as of me writing this.
Even if you cannot donate, please share this post and show it to whoever you know is also supportive of Palestinians, and keep paying attention to them. The attacks have stopped, but Alaa and people like him still need a lot of help to rebuild their lives. Thank you for reading.
