Update: Thank you all for helping and for those who continue to help, as things have escalated in Rafah, I am currently focusing on raising enough funds to evacuate my family and and fiancé from Gaza. Everyone is in danger and there is no safe place in Gaza. If there's enough funds after evacuating my family and fiancé, then I will invest them in paying for my final year of study. Thank you all so so much for your continued support and I will keep you updated with my journey.

I am Walaa from Gaza - Palestine, and I am 23 years old. I am studying human medicine. I love learning, and I love life. My father was a physical therapist and his dream was to become (me) a doctor. This is not an easy matter. In high school, I was living in dire circumstances, so I was in During that period, Gaza was under siege, and my father’s pension was very small. I reached a point where I could not find enough food to gather my energy to study, but it was the only hope that I see in my father’s eyes. One morning, my high school results came out and I found myself with a 98% average. How will I study when my father does not receive a pension and the medical school fees are very high? There was no money to study medicine, but my mother whispered to me, saying, “The mind that God gave you is a trust, and this is your father’s hope and dream. I will give up my inheritance from my family in order to enroll you in medical school, but look after this trust and work hard to make it useful for all people.” Fortunately for me, I studied medicine. I saw my father’s pride increasing every day I went to university. There was only one step left to achieve the dream, but the missiles destroyed my way to the hospital and destroyed my father’s hope, my country, and my life, and I became lifeless and without A dream even to this day.

My date of birth is the eighth of October, but when I was 23 years old, 08/10/2023, our neighbourhood was bombed, I left the house where I grew up all my life. I went as a refugee to another place in northern Gaza. A few days later, the ground invasion started, and on 21/10/2023 the house was bombed above our heads. We emerged safely from under the rubble, but we had no choice but to flee to the south, leaving behind our homes, our dreams, and the rest of our relatives.

On November 20, 2023, the occupation burned my family in northern Gaza. My uncles, aunts, and their children were burned to martyrdom. A few survived this fire, including Salwa, who was five years old. She jumped from the third floor to escape so that her body would not be burned any more. I was the only one in my family able to take care of Salwa. I was studying medicine, and she had suffered from severe third-degree burns on 40% of her body. I was with her to look after her in a hospital in Gaza, but due to her bad condition, she was offered to travel outside Gaza to complete her treatment in Turkey. I left my county, leaving behind my loved ones to live in the cold in a tent that collapsed whenever the rain became intense and was sometimes taken down due to the intensity of the wind. What is painful in Gaza is that sorrows do not come singly.

Also, there is Abdullah! Who is Abdullah?

Abdullah is my fiancé and he studies medicine in the same college as me. We decided to graduate together, but fate did not want it! He was diligent in his studies. We were going to become doctors and announce our marriage, but war destroys dreams until they become ashes. Some of my relatives lost their lives. The university and hospital where we used to move year after year were destroyed. We no longer have the right to wish to live in Gaza for other days.

Today, there is no way left for me to complete the last step in my education and to realize my father’s dream of being the doctor he dreamed of all his life and gave everything he had to me. I collect donations, because the university equation requires a lot of money, and the occupation burned everything. I asked different universities around the world and there is an opportunity to complete my study in the UK, but I need a lot of money to get this opportunity, so I am asking for your help and support in order to collect this amount.

Today I want to save the lives of my father and mother, as well as Abdullah. I want to be a productive part when I finish my study to rebuild the health and the education system.

I need your donation, as it is a way to achieve my dream. I need money to cling to life and to enjoy the rights that befit us as human beings. We want to live and learn, and to feel safe and secure, survivors of war, destruction and killing. We have no shelter, hospital, university or even life left in Gaza.