An estimated 600 U.S. citizens are among the many trapped in Gaza amidst the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and they report feeling abandoned by their government.
Living Conditions: Massachusetts residents Wafaa Abuzayda and Abood Okal, along with their one-year-old baby and others, are caught in the crossfire.
* The family is running out of food, clean water, and essential commodities like milk.
* They have been waiting at the Rafah border crossing into Egypt four times hoping for a chance to escape, but were always denied.
High Casualties: According to Gaza’s health ministry figures, since a Hamas attack killed around 1,400 Israelis, Israeli retaliatory airstrikes have killed more than 7,000 Palestinians, of which approximately 2,700 are children.
* Abood Okal expresses the constant fear of getting hit by a missile and the hopelessness they feel amidst the continuous airstrikes.
Limited Support: Despite reaching out multiple times to the State Department for help, Abuzayda and Okal feel they haven’t received adequate assistance.
* Their Boston-based lawyer, Sammy Nabulsi, contradicted Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent claim that Hamas was blocking the exit for American citizens.
* The State Department has communicated to them that it is working towards getting them out, but there were no updates on when the border crossing might open for them.
Risk Communication: Communicating with the outside world has become increasingly perilous for the family.
* Abood has to stand in an open field to find cell reception to send messages despite the fear of being misidentified as a militant.
* The family is making efforts to distract their baby from the horrors of war, such as adopting a kitten to comfort him.
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