EDITOR'S NOTE: After this story began running on KYW Newsadio's broadcast, Basma contacted reporter Matt Coughlin to say she had learned her cousin, his wife and their children had all been killed in a bombing near Rafah.
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — The death toll in Gaza mounts, as Israeli military assaults continue. And the anguish of Palestinian Americans grows every day, as they live in fear for the safety of loved ones there. A Palestinian American woman in Montgomery County recently described the horror of not knowing.
“You're waiting for them to be — to be dead. That's the nightmare — the nightmare,” she said. “Like, you know, waking up, and when I talk to my sister and my brother, I'm not going to be able to talk to them the second day … or if I will not even know if they are dead or not.”
Basma has asked that her full name be withheld, because she fears for her family, her job, her life here — as a Palestinian American. Her family in Gaza have fled their homes and are now taking refuge in and around Rafah.
Connecting with family members there is difficult, she says. Some take weeks to text her back. And there are others whom she has not heard from since the war began.
“We don't know how much catastrophe we're going to discover after this war,” Basma said. “I might just, like — probably lost half of my family members, and I don't know. The worst part of the nightmare is not knowing things.”
After Hamas' brutal surprise attack and slaughter of 1,400 Israeli civilians on Oct 7, 2023, Israeli leaders pledged to destroy the terrorist organization by pushing for a "total victory." So, for five months, the Israeli military has been hunting Hamas in Gaza — an area roughly equal in size to the city of Philadelphia — reducing to rubble everything from homes and hospitals to graveyards and mosques.
In January, the United Nations’ top court ordered Israel to do all it could to prevent the genocide of Palestinians. At that time, in pursuit of Hamas terrorists, Israeli air strikes and ground assaults had killed some 26,000 Palestinians — a number overwhelmingly comprising children, elderly and noncombatant adults.
Since the court’s ruling, the death toll has passed 30,000.
Basma was born in Egypt and spent part of her childhood in Gaza. She helped her father build their home there in the 1900s.
“I used to tell my dad — I'm like, ‘Dad, I wanna help.’ I built this house with my own hand when I was 7 years old — like, I helped build this house,” she said — “and now it's not there.”
Basma says the war has left her homeland unrecognizable.
“It's all gone. It's all gone,” she said.
“There's nothing to go back to. Even, like, my mom and my dad's graves. I think they were destroyed, basically.”
Basma visited Gaza twice in 2022, the year her mother died. Her father died in 2023. She says it is a blessing that she was able to see both of her parents one last time.
“It's just all the memories, all the heritage, everything — it's gone.”
Israeli leaders say the blame lies with Hamas for hiding in areas heavily populated by noncombatants. World leaders including President Joe Biden say Israel has the right to defend itself, but the Israeli government has been too careless with Palestinian civilian lives.
In recent weeks, prominent Democrats from the Philadelphia area have joined calls from around the world for a ceasefire in Gaza amid a worsening humanitarian crisis and reports of imminent famine. On Saturday afternoon, advocates rallied on Spring Garden Street in Center City to call for an immediate end to the war.
The U.S. is among the nations that have been working for weeks to broker an agreement on a six-week pause in fighting to shore up humanitarian aid to the decimated enclave and to allow for the return of some 100 Israeli hostages taken on Oct. 7 and still held by Hamas.
Basma says she's thinking of them too.
“You know … trust me, I feel bad for those hostages. I just don't feel like anybody innocent should die — period,” she said.
“They just want dignity.”
Like any Israeli who wants their family to be safe and to have their daily needs met — that’s what Palestinian civilians want, Basma said. And she yearns for the world to see her people with humanity.
“I want people to understand, honestly — honestly close their eyes and see these people as normal human beings” she said.
“They are human beings. They are not animal. They are normal — like you and me.”