A journalist in Gaza says his family was killed in an airstrike
A Very Kind Person and a Demonstration of the One-State Solution. My Father, My Sister, and My Sister
This level of loss is not uncommon to see in Gaza. Alnaouq’s family is one of many who have been nearly or entirely wiped out. Since his family was killed, Alnaouq hasn’t had the time to grieve.
My father was a very kind man. Very kind person, very compassionate. He did not have dreams, to be honest. He was a very simple man and he wanted to live with his children. And he was very proud of his children. The one-state solution was what he believed in. For example, he just wanted to have a state in which the Palestinians and the Jews and Muslims and Christians can live together in peace and in harmony. He worked for 30 years in Israel, as a construction builder. So he was a very kind man. And he did not deserve to die in this barbaric way.”
My brother was a civil servant and a lawyer. My younger brother worked at a human rights organization. He was a translator and a researcher. My younger brother got a scholarship to do his master’s degree in Australia just a few months ago and he was very excited to travel and to pursue his master’s degree. He was very, very happy. He was dead after that. He did not survive to go to Australia.”
My sister is a computer engineer. She had four children and she was married. She and her children were killed in a car crash. My other sister, she’s a teacher and she had five children. She and her five children were not breathing. My other sister, she is an accountant. She’s very smart. When she graduated, she graduated top of the university. She was very talented. She is married to someone. Then she had three children. She and all her children were dead.
Abu Safia and his family have no home or family in Gaza, and they cannot return to Gaza without a house or a family
The patients are forced to leave if they are stable enough for the staff to let them go. There are people who lost limbs,” said AbuSafia. This is how bad the situation is.
Things turned bad even though AbuSafia was away. He says his entire direct family was wiped out in two separate Israeli airstrikes. The father of AbuSafia died in the first airstrike at his home on October 13th. His family was killed by another airstrike on October 29th. He can’t return to Gaza without a home or family. His uncle Mohammed Abu Realh is a nurse from Gaza and is living in Chicago.
Palestinians in Chicago mourn loss of family in Gaza: Abu Safia, his aunt and two children, were not in the hospital
“Where are they? Are they under the rubble? Are they still alive? They are injured, are they? It takes five hours for it to take place. Knowing that the worst could actually happen, which in fact happened. To hear that all of them were found, killed,” he said.
They were waiting for updates on AbuSafia’s aunt and two toddlers who were hospitalized in AlShifa with severe burns. There was not enough room in the hospital for his aunt. Abu Realh gets a text message each day from his family in Gaza. Abu Realh did not get his daily text message on the day he spoke to NPR.
“I’m not sure that they can survive without oxygen, without proper ventilation and proper care. There is no supply, there is no care, no electricity, no connection whatsoever. These are children,” said Abu Realh.
After the interview ended, communications remained down. The aunt of AbuSafia’s two children, who are in the hospital, did not reply for days. NPR was told by Abu Realh that the two children, who had been through so much, had died.
Source: Palestinians in Chicago mourn loss of family in Gaza
A Conversation with Husam Abu-Safia during his High School Childhood: ‘When I Met Husam, I Begged Him, and I Just Wanna Meet Him’
I want people to know that she was an amazing mother. She was my father’s original source of support throughout my whole career and she was also my very own building block. They have taught me how to succeed. And they have dedicated their whole life just to see their kids grow, learn, work, and give back to the society. My role model was my father. He was one of the most patient, most strong [person] that I have ever known. Even if they don’t attend, I still want to follow the same path that they want me to take. I want them always also to know that they are alive with me. Everywhere I go. And with everything I do.”
“My oldest brother, his name is Albaraa. I want the people to know he’s the guy, whenever you have a problem, however slight it is, I go to talk to him. And we tried to figure out a solution together. We help each other. He’s the person that you would call whenever you’re in trouble, because you trust them infinitely. ANd that’s Albaraa,” said AbuSafia. He got engaged in three months and was getting ready for his wedding.
“For Osama, when you’re passing through a certain path, you always want company with you. When you are making a decision in your life, you always want to be able to rely on one another, and to hold each other’s hand to push themselves through. We worked together. We studied together. We taught each other. And we walked in the same path. I want people to know that he’s there for them when they need him the most, when they are making a long-term life decision. He’s more than a friend or brother. He’s a brother friend, or even something bigger,” said AbuSafia.
The most close of them was Husam. Husam looked at me when he was a high school student. He would read online, research scientific discoveries, read about history, and so on. We would get to talk to each other about certain things when he came up to me. Because he liked to talk to his older brother. We both played chess a lot, and he beat me in it. He liked to use artificial intelligence. And he wanted to grow and to explore all the opportunities the world would have given him. But unfortunately, that was taken from him.”
“My youngest brother (Amru), he is what we call the fruit of the family. He used to play a lot of video games. He used to interrupt my work or study whenever he had a problem with anything during his playing time. He’d interrupt you to fix his games. And let me tell you, it’s one of the things that I miss most is him interrupting me. I know he won’t be interrupting me anymore.”
Source: Palestinians in Chicago mourn loss of family in Gaza
A Palestinian doctor in the US whose father died of a terrorist attack and his father’s death had to pass through the border into the United States
“As a healthcare professional I know how long it would take to get a patient with these symptoms into the hospital,” said Abu Realh. The other 17-year-old with a fractured spine ought to be on his back for at least a month.
“I knew something bad [was] about to happen for some reason. In the message he said, just look after yourself and we hopefully will be okay. AbuSafia said that after that he received the news of his father’s death.
When I had to leave, I cried at the border. I was crying every time I rode the car from the border to the airport. AbuSafia said in an interview with Morning Edition that he knew things can go bad.
The doctor from Northern Gaza is named Mohammed AbuSafia. He went to the US at the end of July for a two-month program at Cleveland Clinic. He was going to return to Gaza by October 7. AbuSafia had to start his externship one week late because of travel delays, but he was in the US on the day of the attack on Israel.
