Palestinian calls for peace after family killed in air strikes
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- As the conflict between Hamas and Israel continues, people here in the U.S. are living in constant fear for their loved ones in Gaza.
That includes Rawan Eldadah, a Palestinian-American who grew up in the Columbus area.
She was two years old when she came to the U.S. from Gaza, and much of her mother’s family remains there.
“We’ve been living every single day, not even day by day, but minute by minute. Every phone call is scary. Every phone call that we try to make is scary because you don’t know whether or not they’re going to answer,” Eldadah said.
A little more than a week ago, Eldadah and her family got word that six of their loved ones were killed during a bombing in Gaza. This includes her two uncles, her aunt, and three of her cousins, two of whom were under four years old.
Eldadah said the first airstrike killed her aunt and her cousins, and as her uncles went to help people in the rubble, they were killed by a second airstrike.
Now three of her little cousins are orphans.
“These kids are family-less,” Eldadah said. “They have no mother, have no father. We’ve been trying so hard to find ways to bring them here to America so that we can take care of them but with everything going on it’s so hard to do that.”
Eldadah and her family continue to live in fear for her surviving family members and all other people living in Gaza.
“I guess how I feel is just extremely exhausted and helpless. In saying that, I’ve never felt closer to God,” Eldadah said.
She said praying is the only thing she can do to help her loved ones and other Palestinians in Gaza. She said she just wants peace and safety for everyone, not just Palestinians.
“I want everybody in that land that once was called Palestine and is now split into Palestine and Israel, I want everybody to live there in the same way we lived there before this all started happening, where we are all accepting of each other and there’s no type of violence or crimes or hate,” Eldadah said.
No matter your religion, Eldadah said her family appreciates all the prayers people are saying for her family. They continue to fight to bring the surviving children here to Columbus.