As this year draws to a close, I sit in the corner of a dark room, reflecting on everything we’ve endured. Since this nightmare began, days have lost their meaning. It has been a year of loss, blood, and destruction. Time feels like an endless loop, with each day resembling the next—filled with cold, silence, and broken only by the sounds of airstrikes or the wails of grieving mothers.

This year aged me by decades. I watched as loved ones were ripped away, one after another. I saw the home I built with my own hands reduced to rubble and my dreams shattered before my eyes. We lost everything—our safety, our aspirations, and even the basic dignity of life.

My father, the pillar of our family, was gravely injured. He now lies helpless, his eyes filled with sorrow and pain. Every day, I try to ease his suffering, but I can’t hide my helplessness, knowing he desperately needs an expensive surgery I cannot afford.

The children around us are not spared either. My nephews run through the freezing house in torn clothes that barely shield them from the harsh winter. Their innocent, cold-stained faces pierce my heart. All I can offer them are empty promises that things will get better, even as I see nothing but darkness ahead.

While the world prepares to celebrate the new year with fireworks and festivities, we live under skies filled with warplanes and bombs. Joy fills TV screens worldwide, but here, our streets are soaked in blood and tears.

Yet, amidst this pain, a small glimmer of hope persists—the hope that we can find a way out. I am writing to you today to ask for help for my family. We urgently need to raise funds to leave Gaza, where life has become impossible, and to cover my father’s critical surgery. Any support, no matter how small, can be a lifeline for us—a chance to escape this nightmare and start anew.

If you’re reading this, please remember that there are people suffering in silence. Help us, or share our story. You might be the reason we survive. https://gofund.me/d84fe805

This Christmas season, activists in New York City and major cities in Europe spread BDS messages wrapped in holiday cheer