SAN DIEGO, Calif. (KGTV) — “There are no words. There are no words,” said Suzan Hamideh, describing the devastation in Gaza. The region has been bombed by Israeli forces for days and many have been left without power, food, water and medicine.
“It’s very devastating no child should be going through this,” said Hamideh, tearfully.
Hamideh is the president of San Diego’s chapter of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund – a nonprofit that provides medical and humanitarian aid to Palestinian kids in need.
“These children become family. We keep in touch with them,” she said.
The nonprofit started back in 1991. Since then, they’ve helped thousands of children who need specialized care. In addition to sending medical teams overseas, some Palestinian children have been brought back to the U.S. to receive treatment.
“Other kids came due to lost limbs and lost eyes due to airstrikes and bombs,” said Hamideh.
For children who have returned home to Gaza, Hamideh says their team has been trying to reach them this week, like Rahaf, a Palestinian girl they hosted back in 2014.
“Her last message was, ‘Forgive me if I was a burden when you took care of me.’ This is a sentence we normally use if we think we’re not going to make it. This was two days ago. And now we haven’t heard back,” she said.
Hamideh says as she watches the images coming out of Gaza, she also thinks of Farah, a 3-year-old Palestinian girl she hosted here in San Diego back in 2009.
“I think of her and I think of every Palestinian child who goes through this everyday. I’m thinking of every child in Gaza. I’m thinking of every parent," she says. "We want the entire world to wake up and think of these children as any other child in the world. They are no different than any other child.”
