![]() "We're trying to stay strong, but we cannot help but feel hopeless and abandoned," Okal said. Upward of 2,700 of the dead are children. Since the Hamas attack that killed at least 1,400 Israelis, the majority of them civilians, more than 7,000 Palestinians have been killed in retaliatory Israeli airstrikes, according to the health ministry in Gaza. "All it takes is one missile, one airstrike to miss its target or be too close to where you are," Okal said. Okal says he fears the day will come that they get hit. It is what they hear all day and night, along with the booms of the airstrikes. Israeli drones buzz in the background of almost all these voice memos. "We're not safe here because we heard the ground invasion is coming at any moment. "Yousef was sleeping next to the window, literally next to the window, and the window broke," Abuzayda said. In a voice message last Thursday, Abuzayda told us that just two minutes earlier, the house next door had been bombed. Israeli airstrikes have hit the border crossing itself at least four times. ![]() citizens.īut even this far south, miles away from the northern border with Israel, it's not safe. They're crowded in a single-family home with around 40 people – approximately 10 are U.S. Okal, Abuzayda and their baby have been sleeping ten minutes away from the crossing so they can rush over. "The way that American citizens are being treated in Gaza is just a shame on this government and on the State Department, with all its mighty power and influence," Okal told Morning Edition in a voice message from the border crossing. Four times, they've waited at the Rafah border crossing into Egypt under instruction from the State Department that this may be their chance to escape.Įach time, the gate into Egypt remained closed to them. Over the last two weeks, the family has updated Morning Edition on their struggle to get out. The other day, the family had no choice but to drink salt water from a well to stay hydrated. They just ran out of milk for the baby, Yousef. All of them live under constant Israeli bombardment with no way to escape.Ībuzayda and her husband, Abood Okal, are running out of food and clean water. They're trapped alongside more than 2.3 million Palestinians who don't hold foreign passports. citizens trapped in the Gaza Strip, along with more than a thousand others who hold European passports. More than two weeks into the war, she, her husband and their one-year-old baby are still trapped in the besieged Palestinian enclave. In the first few days of the war between Israel and Hamas, American mother and Massachusetts resident Wafaa Abuzayda spoke to Morning Edition from Gaza with a plea to the U.S.
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