‘People in Gaza have lost faith in humanity’
A Palestinian PhD student living in Scotland has said “a lot of people in Gaza have lost faith in humanity” as he spoke about members of his family members who remain in the war-torn area.
Mahmoud Almassri, 30, said he relocated to Edinburgh in 2021 to study physics at Heriot-Watt University in the Capital.
He left Gaza in 2017 to complete a Masters degree in Turkey before moving to the UK, leaving his family and friends in their home city of Beit Hanoun, on the northeast edge of the Gaza Strip.
Following the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict on October 7, he said his relatives – including his father, mother, four brothers and three sisters – were displaced and moved to a refugee camp in Jabalia, northern Gaza.
But after experiencing heavy bombardment, his family were forced further south, to Khan Yunis, where they have been staying in a United Nations school which is now part of another refugee camp.
He said: “A lot of people in Gaza have lost faith in humanity, not just in international law, but they have lost faith in the human being.
“They know that the whole world has been seeing them live on TV being killed in their thousands … It is like hell on Earth every day – and even when you think they have reached a safe haven, it will be very temporary.”
He said his father, Hamed, is a “very optimistic person” but in a recent phone call, he had said: “I do not see any way out and the outcome will be the killing of all of us and we are just trying to survive until that moment.”
Mr Almassri said he is “worried all the time”, especially when he loses contact with family – for days or weeks at a time.
Mr Almassri said his fifth brother, Mohammed, 29, was killed leaving behind his wife who is expecting their first child. Some of his cousins and childhood friends have been killed in the conflict, as well as his uncle who was “shot dead by a sniper” when he went to look for food for his children.
For the rest of his family, Mr Almassri said “the details are very, very bleak”, with even clean water in short supply.
They know that the world has been seeing them live on TV being killed