I am a pregnant seventeen-year-old Gaza refugee, and I have to deal with messages like these sent to those who want to help me:
“You’re getting scammed for money. Makes sense now. Preying on your good will and good intentions to soak money from you and those around you.
Guaranteed these accounts are being run in China or Africa somewhere. I recognize this form of ‘poor English’ anywhere, and the emoji spam is classic feminine appeal to masculine savior complex.
This woman is also a man by the way. Because men know how to tug the heartstrings of men better than women by appealing to you in this manner.”
This comment was addressed to my American friend Eros Salvatore who I have known for almost a year. He had posted my DM of gratitude to him to one of his social media accounts. He had just gotten $90 in donations for me and offered to edit my writing for publication. So I thanked him:
“I am so very proud of you, you are the best person I have ever known, you are truly a human being, thank you very much and forever, I have not settled yet, but I promise you that I will send you the story very very soon!”
I broke down and cried when I read that man’s response. I was married at age fourteen, and I now live alone with my husband, Hasan, in a palace made of rubble. I am pregnant and don’t have enough food to feed myself and my baby. What a waste of life. I have avoided being murdered by the Occupation for eighteen months, only to suffer like this and run out of food and money when I should be celebrating the new life within me. I have no protection from the bombs and bullets, and now this Zionist is harassing me and telling me that I am a liar. Should I stop asking for help and give up?
I am ready to prove that I am a victim of the Occupation and that I am pregnant too. I have a pregnancy test result from the hospital and an ultrasound that I can send to anyone. I have a photograph of the view from my room in a destroyed apartment tower with the street full of garbage and debris below. I am not lying. I have a video of me reciting poetry when I was a child, and in the video I mention my name and age. Is that not enough?
Any donation that is given to me, I withdraw it and buy important medicines and vitamins for my daughter. Any amount that comes, I withdraw it and pay the rent. Note that the amount does not arrive in full, but rather comes to me incomplete because of the twenty to thirty percent commission the money changers take—the greedy who rob the poor of what they deserve.
This is not my first pregnancy. I was three months pregnant on October 7th, 2023 but, because of the lack of prenatal care, loss of sleep and terrible anxiety, I miscarried. I woke up one day during a bombing and found that I had a severe hemorrhage. We went to the nearest hospital and they examined me and told me that the fetus was very weak. They tried to save my baby, but he died. I had lost my first child.
That was just after my brother Bahaa and my brother-in-law Mohammed were murdered as they tried to rescue Gaza refugees trapped by the fighting. During the winter of 2023-24, when we had few blankets or warm clothes and little food, many of my elders died as well. I lost aunts and uncles on cold nights when tarps and twine were not enough to keep them warm. I can not begin to count the friends and neighbors who have perished, my BFF’s Warda and Malak…the list goes on.
I love my daughter so much. I have named her Maria. Please pray for me that Maria survives. I need her!