‘They’re all suffering, and they don’t have hope now... things are getting worse’
A family in Wales have dozens of relatives trapped in Gaza and have launched fundraisers to help them escape. Reem Ahmed reports
FOR the Alsisi family, every day feels like Groundhog Day. It’s been like that for seven months now, as the Israel-Hamas war continues to rage on in the Gaza Strip.
“We’re living the same emotions, almost every day,” says Amira Alsisi, 23.
“It is completely dictated by how our family is faring over there.”
Amira, her mother Basema, 52, her father and her three brothers, who live in Cardiff, have more than 150 relatives scattered all over the small Palestinian territory, which is bordered by Israel and Egypt. Most of their cousins, uncles, aunts, nieces and nephews are now living impoverished in tents, their houses having been reduced to rubble by Israeli bombardment; others are crammed by the dozen in houses that are still standing, or are living primitively in half-demolished buildings.
Unable to afford the extortionate cost of evacuation fees, they cannot escape. The Alsisis rely on WhatsApp messages and voice notes to keep in touch with them, though Wi-Fi and mobile data in Gaza are patchy. Seeing the grey ticks eventually turn blue brings immense relief – they know their family are still alive. But often they can hear the sound of the bombardment in the background of the voice notes – a grim reminder of how the lives of their loved ones remain on a knife edge.
The events of the past seven months in the long-running conflict were triggered by a surprise attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas – which rules the Gaza Strip – on Israel on October 7 last year. Gunmen killed more than 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 250 hostages. In retaliation, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) launched an intense military offensive in Gaza. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has maintained the purpose of the campaign is to eradicate Hamas and get all the hostages returned.
But it has taken a devastating and unprecedented toll on Palestinian civilians. Much of the Strip has been razed to the ground and its population thrown into a humanitarian crisis. To date, over 34,900 people have been killed, more than 78,500 have been wounded, and thousands more are missing – many presumed to be dead under the rubble. Most victims have been women and children.
Some 1.7 million people – more than 75% of Gaza’s 2.3 million population – have been displaced, according to the latest data from the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA). The northern part of Gaza, including its densely populated urban centre Gaza City, has borne the brunt of the destruction, with people fleeing in droves to other regions. Around 1.4 million displaced Palestinians – including relatives of the Alsisi family – have been sheltering in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, for months. Until recently, it was the only city in Gaza the Israeli military had not yet entered.
But the lifeline Rafah has offered to civilians is now in jeopardy. Some 80,000 Palestinians, including the Alsisis’ relatives, have fled from the eastern area of the city since Monday, May 6, when Israel warned them to evacuate as it launched its offensive on the region – something which it has vowed to do for months, regardless of a ceasefire. On Tuesday, May 7 the IDF seized control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, which has been a vital entry point for aid on the Egyptian border. As a result, the flow of critical aid into Gaza has ground to a nearhalt. Meanwhile, Israeli shelling on the city has since killed and injured dozens of people. It is preparing to launch a full-scale ground invasion, despite staunch opposition from most of its allies.
Amira and Basema described to the Western Mail the plight of three of their relatives trapped in Gaza – the Al-Burbar family: Basema’s sister Fatma, 47, Fatma’s husband Adil, 57, and their only son Haytham, 24. Before the war they led successful lives in Gaza City. Haytham is a professional bodybuilder and personal trainer, and also holds an IT degree; Fatma worked as an English teacher with UNRWA; and Adil owned a stationery shop.
Three weeks after the war began they were forced to flee their flat. Bombs were dropping all around them in a clockwise direction, Basema recalled from her conversations with Fatma. “It was very dark, with bombing everywhere,” she said. “[Fatma] was walking next to the walls so [the IDF] didn’t see them – because if they saw them moving they would have bombed them straightaway. So they were by the wall, walking step by step, and suddenly a door opened. She thought it was a wall, but it was a door.”
Fatma’s hand had pressed against the door, which belonged to a family home. The family inside had left it ajar in case they needed to escape quickly. Seeing an opportunity for shelter, Fatma, Adil and Haytham went inside straightaway.
“They all started screaming,” said Basema. “[The two families] were both shocked.”
But the chance encounter was pivotal for the Al-Burbars’ survival. The other family let the three of them take refuge with them overnight, before they took a taxi to Rafah – which was very expensive due to the risk of travelling by car – in the morning. During their escape they had taken some bags of belongings with them, thinking they would be able to return to get more later on once it was safe to do so. But they never have.
Earlier on in the war, someone sent them a picture showing the damage to their once “really nice” flat. It’s presumed it has been completely destroyed by now, said Amira. It is one of around 370,000 homes in Gaza that have been damaged, with almost 79,000 of those having been completely destroyed. In “the most optimistic scenario” it will cost $40bn (£32bn) and take until 2040 to rebuild neighbourhoods, the UN forecasts. Other buildings such as schools, stores, hospitals and mosques have also been bombed – including Haytham’s university, meaning he never got to go to his graduation ceremony.
The Al-Burbar family lived in a tent in Rafah for seven months, until they were forced to flee recently after Israel launched its offensive on the city. Basema tries to make contact with Fatma, as well as her five other sisters and two brothers – who are sheltering in different parts of the territory – every day, but she lost contact with Fatma for a few days after the recent heavy bombardment. She was informed by one of her other sisters that, thankfully, the
Al-Burbars had been among those evacuated and they are now living in a tent in Deir Al Balah, a city in central Gaza.
Unsurprisingly, living in an encampment for so long has been bleak for the family of three, Basema said.
“They’re all suffering, and they don’t have hope now, to be honest. Nothing is changing, things are getting worse, the situation is getting really bad, hospitals have been destroyed – so they can’t see any hope in their life, unfortunately. Fatma, in particular, she’s a very funny person – but she’s not anymore. She would always laugh and joke, but when I talk to her, she’s different.”
Basic human needs have become a luxury while they live in a tent, she added. “It’s very humiliating to live in a tent and share a bathroom and kitchen with thousands and thousands of people. You have to go in a queue to go to the bathroom, and it’s very hard to have a shower.” As for food and drink, they’ve been living off mainly canned goods and unclean water. The already poor water system has been damaged amid the conflict, with the territory now producing just 20% of the water supply it did before October 7.
“Most people have lost weight. The water is not [fit] for humans, but they still drink it because if they don’t drink water, they will die. So they have no option,” said Basema.
Though a famine has not been formally declared in Gaza, head of the UN World Food Programme Cindy McCain recently told NBC she believes the north is experiencing “full-blown famine”, which she said is creeping southwards.
There are no small pleasures, like TV and books, to keep them occupied in their tent. But as Muslims, they find hope and strength through prayer and reading the Qur’an. Before they were forced to move to Deir Al Balah, they sometimes visited one of Basema’s other sisters, Seham, who was still living in her house in Rafah.
Seham was hosting around 80 other family members who had fled their homes and the Al-Burbar family would go to her house for some respite from the encampment – or simply to have a shower. But now even that pleasure has been torn away from them: Seham and the dozens of relatives living with her have also fled Rafah and are now living in tents in Deir Al Balah.
For the Al-Burbar family, the horror and pain of the war have been further exacerbated by another concern: Adil is ill with bladder cancer and he has not been able to have any treatment since the conflict began. He also has Crohn’s disease, a chronic illness which affects the digestive system.
He was diagnosed with both just before the war started and hasn’t had any CT or PET scans since then to keep an eye on the progress of his cancer. The healthcare system in Gaza is collapsing amid the conflict, with less than a third of hospitals even partially functioning, according to the WHO. But the problem isn’t that Adil hasn’t managed to get to a hospital, Amira explained. “They have been to hospitals. There’s no medicine to give him – that is the issue,” she said.
Living in a tent, he is becoming weaker by the day. “He was struggling before, even when he had the treatment. Now he’s really in a bad situation. His health condition is getting worse and worse every day,” said Basema.
Amira added: “He can’t keep food down. There’s some days where he literally just does not move from where he’s lying, because he cannot.
“Walking for him is quite difficult. He feels sore and numb in his extremities, and he also has migraines and severe vertigo.”
The family have managed to secure a transfer note from a hospital in Gaza, which means Adil has permission to be medically evacuated. But with around 9,000 other civilians requiring evacuation for emergency care, the waiting-list is months long. “I think my aunt would be given permission to leave with him. But that would leave Haytham in Gaza by himself,” said Amira.
Getting a faster evacuation into Egypt without a medical note requires money – lots of it. It costs at least $5,000 for an adult and $2,500 for a child, with some reports that people have paid up to $15,000.
“It is a lot of money, and that obviously excludes the fees of trying to find somewhere in Egypt to live and the cost of living there,” said Amira.
She has set up a GoFundMe campaign for the Al-Burbar family. The funds will primarily be used to help get medical care for Adil – as well as basic necessities like food and clothes – and if enough money is raised, it will be used to get the three of them out of Gaza.
Amira has also set up two other fundraising campaigns for two of her other aunts and their families trapped in Gaza, and she is in the process of setting up more. The first is for the Harb family, who are living in the “bare bones” of their halfdestroyed home in Nuseirat. The second is for the Shaheen family, who are also living in a tent after their home in Khan Younis was destroyed by shelling.
Until they’re all evacuated, Amira admitted it feels almost inevitable that they will be killed. “It feels like it’s a waiting game of when it’s going to happen, not if it’s going to happen. It has just been harrowing to just sit here and not feel like you can do anything,” she said.
She and Basema reeled off a list of their relatives who have already died since October 7. “My dad’s cousin’s family have basically been wiped out,” said Amira. “I have a cousin who was 17. He was walking in the street with his friend, looking for food, and they got hit and died. My other aunty, her eldest son has been presumed dead since October... and he was the main source of income for them.”
Basema added: “My dad’s cousin was killed with his kids and wife and grandchildren. My other cousin, he lost three of his children – three girls. They were playing outside and they just bombed them and they went into pieces.”
It’s been a decade since Basema visited Gaza herself and saw her family in person. But she knows well the hardship of life in Gaza, even before the current war. She lived there until she was 29, and back then the territory was officially occupied by Israel, who had built Jewish settlements there after a war in 1967.
“I was born in Gaza and I know what the situation is like, and how bad it is, and how vulnerable they all are, because they’re all innocent people and they can’t defend themselves,” she said. “[When I lived in Gaza] our life was not easy. We were an occupied country and it was not safe – not like now, of course. But still, it was a very big struggle.
“To be under [Israeli] occupation means they control everything in your life. [Israeli authorities] used to come to the house in the middle of the night, take anyone and put them in prison and you couldn’t do anything about it. They scared us. I’ve seen lots of blood and things in my life. I didn’t have a normal childhood... But we managed – we managed because we were all together as a family and we supported each other. The neighbours as well, they support each other.”
She recalled Israeli authorities even violently gatecrashed her wedding day. “I was wearing my white dress... they came in and they wanted to take my husband. They beat my brother-in-law in his face and they shouted. My mum managed to stop them and she told them that we are just getting married today and we’ve done nothing to harm them and we haven’t done anything bad.
“After like half an hour of begging them, they let us go. But before I got married, they came many, many times to my house. They took my brothers. One of them they put in jail for three months for no reason at all. And if they didn’t come to my house, they came to the house next door.”
It was also normal for people to be killed outright by Israeli authorities, she added. “Usually they walked in the streets – lots of them with their weapons. And they would horrify us, especially the kids. If they wanted to kill anyone, they would kill them straightaway, face to face.”