As Palestinians flee, Bay Area residents with relatives in Gaza wake up to texts of death and loss

For Bay Area residents with friends and family on both sides of the conflict, there’s little room for understanding as some with roots in Israel have signed up to join the Israeli military and those with ties to Gaza have been protesting in front of SF’s Israeli consulate and are trying to mobilize aid within Gaza despite blockades.

All week, Wael Buhaissy has been up late at his home in San Ramon. He can’t take his eyes off his phone, waiting for messages from his extended family 7,000 miles away.

This is what life has become for thousands of Palestinian Americans in the Bay Area whose loved ones and friends are under siege in Gaza.

Buhaissy, 55, can barely speak of the devastation described in the messages he’s received so far as Israeli bombs rain down in retaliation for the deadly terror attacks last week by Hamas that killed hundreds inside Israel. Buhaissy learned that one of his cousins, Mohamad, was killed along with Mohamad’s son, Hamdan, and 2-year-old granddaughter, Nour.

Another cousin sent a message on Facebook that Buhaissy, a 35-year Bay Area resident, read aloud: “I am speechless at what’s happening,” his cousin, Mazoza, wrote. “Every little while, there is a nearby massacre.”

A week after Hamas launched the deadliest attack on Israel in its 75-year history and Israeli forces slammed back, Palestinians living in Gaza have been hiding in basements and schools as bombs drop around them and wondering whether they will be granted safe passage out. On Friday, thousands began packing their belongings and fleeing as Israeli troops amassed on the northern border of Gaza and the Israeli government demanded that 1.1 million Palestinians move south.

For Bay Area residents with friends and family on both sides of the conflict, there’s little room for understanding. Some locals with roots in Israel who watched reports of the carnage and kidnappings of civilians wrought by Hamas last week have returned to serve in the Israeli military. Those with ties to Gaza, whose loved ones feel like they have been living in an “open air prison” for decades under Israeli occupation, have been protesting in front of San Francisco’s Israeli consulate and are trying to mobilize aid within Gaza, despite blockades.

Many pray for peace. Many want justice.

At the Berkeley-based nonprofit MECA, Middle East Children’s Alliance, director Zeiad Shamrouch and his team have for decades been providing filtered drinking water, building schools and supplying meals to Palestinian children. This week, they’re running out. Still, he said his Gaza-based colleagues are risking their lives to drive around the city and find food and medical supplies for the families sheltering in schools. So far this week, he said, his group has helped feed about 2,500 people.

“We are in a hurry because we know that soon maybe we have nothing to do in Gaza because we have no resources,” said Shamrouch, monitoring events from his Berkeley office all week. He was born in a refugee camp in Bethlehem in 1964 and raised with his parents and four siblings in a 9-by-9-square-foot room. His family didn’t have a private bathroom until 1976.

As WiFi connections allow, he’s been in touch with the head of his nutrition program, who told him she is living in a single-family home with three-dozen family members who gathered over the past week for refuge. Most are children.

“It’s not just about safety,” said Shamrouch, 58, of the living conditions in Gaza now. “It’s about security — that if something were to happen, let us be together. Let us be around each other.”

As of early Saturday, more than 2,000 Palestinians and 1,300 Israelis had been killed since Hamas’ sneak attack and bombings last week on Israeli villages sparked the crisis. The victims on both sides of the border have been largely civilians.

All humanitarian aid has been blocked from entering Gaza — and for days, the territory’s 2.4 million people have been trapped inside the narrow stretch of land. Gaza’s only power plant has stopped functioning. Most residents have no access to drinking water. Hospitals and ambulances have been crumpled by airstrikes. And more than 420,000 Palestinians have been displaced, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The Israeli Government has stated that the area will be under siege until Hamas — the U.S.-designated terror organization that controls the Gaza Strip — frees 120 Israeli hostages who were kidnapped during the attacks last weekend.

In a speech Friday night, President Biden repeated his commitment that the “United States stands with Israel,” while declaring the growing “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza a top priority. “We can’t lose sight of the fact that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians had nothing to do with Hamas and these appalling attacks, and they’re suffering as a result as well.”

In San Francisco, Sharif Zakout has been staying up at night, glued to his TV looking for news from Gaza, scanning his phone for text messages from friends and relatives there and, on the rare occasion when a call gets through, speaking with loved ones trapped.

“You just hear their voices cracking, just this intense fear,” said Zakout, 33, an organizer with the Arab Resource and Organizing Center in San Francisco. Each day this week, the news for Zakout gets worse.

On Monday, one friend told Zakout that his house had been destroyed. Another said his uncle had been killed. By Wednesday, another friend shared that on a single night, a dozen members of her family were killed in air strikes.

“Every day, this has been our reality — waking up to texts that ‘I have lost this family member, or this part of my city is now destroyed,’ ” said Zakout, who was born in San Francisco and grew up with stories about his grandmother’s refugee experience and being forced out of her homeland as a child. “It has been incredibly heartbreaking, and in so many ways it just feels like we’re powerless. When we don’t hear from them, I never know if it’s because they don’t have internet or if I should assume the worst.”

As many Palestinians began their exodus to the south, the United Nations warned that Israel’s demand to move more than a million people across Gaza would lead to “devastating consequences.” The organization is hoping instead that Israel allow the opening of a corridor for humanitarian aid to get through, including food, medical supplies and drinking water.

On Saturday, Israel and Egypt agreed to allow American citizens in Gaza to cross into Egypt and negotiations were ongoing to allow aid into the territory through the same crossing.

In the meantime, Zakout is waiting and worrying and checking his phone for word from his relatives.

“There’s a very clear sense of desperation,” he said.