We need your help with this campaign!

Every day counts, as Israel continues bombing all of Gaza and moves towards a ground invasion into Rafah.

Our friend Basel Diab is now on his way out of Gaza—thanks to the tremendous, generous solidarity of friends known and unknown!

But Basel’s family members still remain in a refugee tent in Rafah.

The Diab family was unsure whether Basel would be able to fundraise enough to get out of Gaza. Thanks to all of you, Basel has secured the possibility of a future—and now they long for a future that the Diab family can share together.

Accordingly, we have increased our fundraising target.

Leaving Gaza is both very difficult and very expensive. Through coordination with a tourism company in Egypt, we have a pathway to take them out. The coordination process and border fees required to enter Egypt cost $6,000 per person. In addition, there is the cost of settling them in Egypt.

The bare minimum:
$36,000 fee to move six people out of Gaza and into Egypt
$4,000 for rent in Egypt

Basel introduces this project in his own words here. Below, each of his family members have added their introduction.

From Basel:

It’s with great pleasure, despite the great sadness we are experiencing, that I express my appreciation and sincere thanks to everyone who supported me to make the donation campaign a success and to contribute with me in completing my travel procedures from Gaza to Cairo. This noble stance of people with living consciences has given me hope that life can improve for the better.

But my joy remains incomplete as I prepare to travel—as my family will face daily suffering because of their stay in the forced displacement tent. Since the beginning of the genocide war, they have been without shelter. Our house was destroyed by the occupation, and all its contents and our possessions were destroyed. I always wonder how I can help free my family of this suffering.

After my experience with you, I became certain that that through you, my family members could also be supported in traveling to Cairo, as a safe haven that would save them from the dangers of genocide and this brutal war. I want to free them from these concerns and from the scenes of bloody crimes that have claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people. Scenes of innocent people killed—including my dearest friends and their families, who were killed with two hundred other citizens in a devastating bombardment with bombs weighing more than six explosive tons. This scene that haunts me, the faces of the innocent children killed and the women killed under the rubble of their demolished homes—I cannot let it be repeated with the people closest to me, my family.

On 10/13/2023, the occupation army forced my family to move from north to south Gaza. They walked long distances under bombardment.

This is a video of me and my family on October 13, 2023, when we were forced to leave our house under bombardment, missiles, and phosphorus bombs, walking a distance of 35 kilometers towards the south of the Gaza Strip.

My family eventually reached Khan Yunis and stayed there for two months, facing difficult living conditions due to the difficulty of obtaining food drinking water, and fuel.

This picture was taken for all of us by my sister Yara during our first displacement, in a tent in the city of Khan Yunis, before we were displaced again to Rafah.

Due to the intense bombing in various parts of Gaza, my family took refuge in the far south of Gaza and settled in a tent west of Rafah, among tens of thousands of crowded tents in dangerous and unsanitary conditions: extreme cold, lack of sanitation, scarcity of water and fuel, and continuous power outages—these, alongside regular aerial and artillery bombardment close to the tent, spreading epidemics and infectious diseases, and a lack of health facilities, medicines and necessary treatments.

My family lost security and safety in light of the devastating war in Gaza, and now they are looking to leave Gaza to save their lives and move forward in building their future by completing the education they lost in the destroyed schools and universities.

In the name of humanity, I appeal to you to provide whatever donations you can to help save my family: my father, my mother, my sisters, and my younger brother from the genocide in Gaza, to pay the costs of coordinating travel from Gaza to Egypt and to find shelter for them there.

This is the neighborhood from which we were displaced, where we had a home.

Below, you will meet each member of the Diab family (their texts have been translated into English from Arabic). All of them are in deep need for safety, all of them have chosen to turn to international solidarity as their hope of evacuating the genocide in Gaza.

Nbail Diab

This is a picture of my father Nbail Diab, in the 2014 aggression after the occupation destroyed our house at that time. We rebuilt it and they destroyed it again in the October 7 aggression.

Marwa

I am Marwa, the mother of this family, which remained with me after the occupation destroyed our house and burned all our memories in it. I also lost my only uncle and his sons who were martyrs. After our forced displacement, I was left forced to leave my sick, paralyzed mother. I can no longer bear these harsh living conditions, especially since I suffer from Chronic chest asthma and I cannot tolerate fire smoke, and we were forced to cook on wood fires. In the face of the daily scenes of killing and massacres, I, like other mothers, fear for my children and want to hide them in their eyes so that no harm will happen to them. I want to be saved from this terrifying nightmare by taking them out of Gaza so they can enjoy a decent and safe life and we continue with them the journey of building their future. Every living conscience should stand with us and be the best helper for us.

Yousra Nabil Diab

I was not able to obtain a high school diploma. The occupation destroyed our school, like thousands of schools, and as a result of the ongoing genocidal war in Gaza, the educational process stopped, and with every sound and explosion of shells and missiles, I feel frustrated and lose hope towards what I dreamed of, to join one of the schools. Universities and head towards the future, knowing that I am one of the outstanding students in studies... Every hour and every time I wonder when it is time for me to leave Gaza to complete my education and achieve my aspirations for a bright future after this great darkness... Help us.

Muhammad Nabil Diab

I am Muhammad, 13 years old. Why do the occupation and its hideous war deprive us of living in safety like the rest of the children in the world? Why did he destroy our beautiful school and deprive me of studying, and also deprive me of my friends, since we were forced to flee each area? Why did they destroy the football field where I trained and became a goalkeeper, and before this cursed war, I was chosen to travel to Egypt to receive training and participate in matches with sports clubs? Give me back a small part of my innocent childhood so that I can start again to complete my studies and practice my hobby, football, which I loved?

Yara Nabil Diab

After the occupation destroyed my university, Al-Azhar University in Gaza, I lost the opportunity to obtain a bachelor’s degree in laboratory medicine, as I am in the third level and only a year remains until my graduation. As the genocidal war continued, the occupation also destroyed most of the health facilities in one of which I could have received training and gotten a job opportunity. My suffering did not stop there, as I experienced the bitterness of forced displacement, homelessness, and living with my family in a tent under harsh living conditions. I look forward to getting out of here, from destroyed Gaza, to live a decent, safe life, to complete my university education, and to unleash even a small part of my aspirations that were destroyed by the genocidal war in Gaza.

~Basel & Family

Basel's Story (original campaign)

After enduring almost six months of genocide in Gaza, our friend Basel has made the difficult decision to leave his home. Basel wants to complete his education with postgraduate studies; he wants to have a future; he wants to live.

We created this crowdfunding space to help Basel reach safety by getting him out of Gaza as soon as possible.

Basel is a lawyer. In the last months of genocide, missiles fired by the Israeli occupation destroyed his family home, the university he graduated from (Al-Azhar), the headquarters of his union, the legal consulting office where he was training, and Gaza’s “Palace of Justice” courthouse. He has lost many colleagues and friends as martyrs.

Basel's University, Before & After

Basel's Destroyed Office

In Basel’s own words (translated from Arabic):

I know how my ancestors suffered during the Nakba of Palestine in 1948, as I come from the destroyed village of Al-Masmiya. I feel this same cruelty and bitterness in these recent months, when I was forced to flee from bombings several times with my family, when we settled in a tent that did not protect us from the cold, when we have not had access to good life in difficult living conditions with huge overcrowding of displaced people. Even water is difficult to obtain. We make whatever kind of food we have on the fire due to the scarcity of cooking gas. It is not a healthy life, neither physically nor psychologically healthy, and I have lost all the components of life.

Everything was destroyed. The home, the office, the union. And this violence destroyed my aspirations to build my future as a lawyer.

After deep thought, I decided to leave Gaza so that I might be able to build my future outside it. This was not an easy decision for me.

Basel's Video of Their Destroyed Home

Basel does not have access to this money—so today, he places his hope for escape, survival, and a future in the solidarity of unknown friends.

As we fundraise for Basel’s exit from Gaza, we are simultaneously working to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire, an end to the genocide, urgent access to aid in Gaza, and liberation for the Palestinian people. As this broader work toward ending the violence continues, we are striving to support Basel as he struggles to secure his future.

We are profoundly grateful for any help that you can offer him.

Basel's home now

Basel's tent

Basel (middle) with two friends, who have since both been killed in the genocide

Help the Diab Family Escape Genocide

This family of six is seeking refuge in Egypt from the horrors of daily life in Gaza. The children have schooling to finish. Read their story below.