My story The Canine and the Refugee, about a married refugee who relies on a friendly dog to keep him company while he endures being separated from his wife and children, has been published in Dissident Voice.
Gaza’s Last Fairytale has been published by Dissident Voice, an online political magazine. An updated version was published on Z Network here. It describes my 2024 interactions with Alaa Jamal, a widowed mother in Gaza who has suffered more than most Gaza refugees, but found a way to pick herself off the ground and start contributing to rebuilding Gaza.
You can donate to Alaa Jamal’s Go Fund Me campaign here
Fatima’s Family is Going to Die is my fourth story in the Glimpses of Gaza series published by Z Network.
It chronicles the daily struggles of a young woman named Fatima Jamal, as she struggles with the deaths of her relatives. You will find a Go Fund Me link to help her at the bottom of the article as well as here.
My most recent story in the Glimpses of Gaza series, Between Rage and Despair (a five minute read) follows the struggles of Fatima Ahmed Qadeeh, a widowed mother with three young children who has lost over fifty relatives in the Gaza genocide, as she tries to feed and shelter her parents and children. This is a link to Fatima’s Go Fund Me for those that want to help her with food and a tent. Even five dollars would make her happy.
Fatima’s Three Children:
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The American-Jewish magazine Moment did a piece on my online video meetings with Gaza refugees and those trying to help them. It’s called A Zoom Room With A View: One Man’s Window Into A Rafah Refugee Camp.
You can watch one of the Zoom meetings here
Below are Go Fund Me links to the refugees mentioned in the article.
The family of Diana Hamada at https://gofund.me/67eac389
The family of Samar and Omar Al-Sadi at https://gofund.me/d6a5dcb2
The family of Maryam Hasanat at https://gofund.me/9e6745b9
And my co-host for the meetings, Omar Skaik and his family at https://gofund.me/66dfcdb0
Also, among the refugees I am helping:
The family Rawan Al-Jadi. Rawan is in the eighth month of a pregnancy with medical complications. You can find out more at https://gofund.me/226de26a
The family of Alaa Jamal. Alaa is a widow and mother of two young children who lost most of her relatives, as well as her husband, during the war. Alaa has gone from 70kg (144lbs) to 52kg (114lbs) since the war started, and her children have had to go to the hospital to get treatment for severe malnutrition. Her three-year-old daughter Sanaa contracted Hepatitis A and can no longer eat on her own. You can find out more here: https://gofund.me/d0591059
Scroll down to other blog posts to find links to my most recent articles and stories published in news journals and literary magazines, as well as films and videos, in chronological order.
Many things have been happening with my work with Gaza Refugees since my last article was published in late March including:
We have weekly Zoom meetings with Gaza Refugees every Sunday at noon Pacific Time (10pm Gaza time) until the end of May. You can meet and talk with Gaza refugees in a relatively comfortable environment with my co-host Omar Skaik live in Rafah who has since been forced to flee the bombing to go to another refugee camp. Meeting Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81639371200
The American Jewish magazine Moment – digital edition will be doing a story on our meetings that will be published around June 1st!
You can watch a Zoom Meeting with Gaza Refugees below:
May 05 Meeting: https://youtu.be/Y5Ue8lDCMtk
Our meetings will include options to donate to refugee families. If you are looking for refugees to help that are legitimate, I recommend the following campaigns. Remember, your donation is not just monetary, it brings hope to people who have known genocide and have been forced to flee from place to place since the beginning of the war.
The family of Alaa Jamal. Alaa is a widow and mother of two young children who lost most of her relatives, as well as her husband, during the war. Alaa has gone from 70kg (144lbs) to 52kg (114lbs) since the war started, and her children have had to go to the hospital to get treatment for severe malnutrition. Her weight was stabilized this spring until the IDF invasion of Rafah and closure of the border. No one knows what will happen now. Food is running out. https://gofund.me/d0591059
The family of Diana Hamada at https://gofund.me/67eac389
The family of Omar Al-Sadi at https://gofund.me/d6a5dcb2
The family of Salah El-Din at https://gofund.me/0d8dd782
The family of Farah Kamal at https://gofund.me/9e453e5a
The family Rawan Al-Jadi at https://gofund.me/226de26a
The family of Marah Kamal at https://gofund.me/64d22ac7
The family of Fatima Jamal at https://gofund.me/9dc4b560
The family of Maryam Hasanat at https://gofund.me/9e6745b9
And my co-host for the meetings, Omar Skaik and his family at https://gofund.me/66dfcdb0
I am pleased to announce that our fundraising efforts have helped evacuate two families from my articles on Gaza: Anwar Ghilan, from my story Glimpses of Gaza, whom evacuated to Egypt with his wife and one year-old son on May 3rd, 2024. And the family of Mays Astal, from my story The Women Who Live Between the Barbed Wire and the Sea, whom evacuated to Egypt in late April, 2024. I am also happy to report the birth of Talia, who was delivered prematurely by her mother Maryam Hasanat on May 1st, 2024. Two Orthodox Christians in Gaza who I am writing about, Omar Skaik’s friends Fahmi and Rami, evacuated with their families on May 5th, 2024 – the last day before Israel invaded Rafah and closed the border! Unfortunately, the border closing has trapped the rest of the refugees in Gaza and severely limited humanitarian aid, so more are dying at a faster rate, not only from a lack of aid but from increased bombing and fighting, most of which is initiated by the IDF.
My second story in the Glimpses of Gaza series “The Women Who Live Between the Barbed Wire and the Sea” has been published in Z magazine on March 24, 2024.
“The Women Who Live…” weaves together the stories of women from six different families as each of them struggles to cope with war as a refugee, including one, Maryam, who is eight months pregnant and faces imminent death. All stories are true and come from the many women in Gaza I have befriended.
Read here: The Women Between the Barbed Wire and the Sea – published by Z
Maryam and her husband Mohammed
The first story in my series about my interactions with Gaza refugees has been published online in Z magazine on March, 18th, 2024.
The story follows the life of a Anwar, a refugee who had everything, lost it overnight and had to fight for his family to survive against all odds.
Glimpses of Gaza – Anwar’s Story published by Z
My first published short story “Heroin, My Only Friend” was published on April 17th, 2020 in ANTI-HEROIN CHIC.
You can read it here: Heroin, My Only Friend
Or you can listen to me read it on their Soundcloud page:
The true story of the murder of a Nez Perce tribal man that took place in 1956 in Orofino, Idaho as witnessed by my friend Doug Frantum.
My short story “A Native Lynching” was published in THE BLUE NIB (now defunct) and THE WHISTLE PIG literary journals in 2020.
Click here to view or download PDF in Dropbox: A NATIVE LYNCHING Please download the PDF for better quality. It looks a bit blurry in the Dropbox preview.
