As world celebrates hostage release, some Palestinian families still feel invisible
With All eyes on the Israeli hostages. Returning to their families as a result of the current ceasefire, Palestinian Americans who lived or have loved ones in Gaza remain largely invisible to their own government. and the western media ― mourning the destruction of their homeland and the murder of their friends and family, as they have been doing for over two years.
Since the presidency of Donald Trump 20-point plan for the Middle East came into effect earlier this month, Hamas has as of Wednesday released all 20 live hostages and several deceased captives, while Israel has freed nearly 2,000 people alive. Palestinian hostages and about 90 captives died.
“We’ve had a lot of stories and family photos of the hostages from the Israeli side, and almost nothing from the Palestinian side, from Americans who have an interest in this,” Arab American Institute founder Jim Zogby told News themezone. “They haven’t been told their story.”
“‘Oh, the hostage families, we feel so bad for them’… Well, what about my family? What about the 67,000 Palestinians?”
– Adria Arafat
After the October 7 attack, Palestinian Americans found it more difficult than it already was to receive government support to evacuate their loved ones from Gaza. Many of those families have spent the last two years watching their homes turn to rubble, their relatives reduced to bones, and their elected officials vote to send billions of dollars in weapons for Israel to drop on their people.
“It’s disgusting. When I think about it I get very depressed, everyone I know in Gaza has been going through the same deep depression,” Aiman Arafat, an American citizen from Gaza, told News themezone last week. “Sometimes I’m in a really bad mood. I wake up and read the news, and it’s the same thing: copy, paste, copy, paste, every day. I just wish I woke up and there’s something, it’s over, but no.”
While studying in the United States, Arafat met and married Adria, who was born and raised in a small town in Utah. The two lived in Gaza City, across from the now-destroyed Al-Shifa Hospital, for nearly a decade before returning to the United States and settling in Memphis, Tennessee. The two ended their visit to Gaza a week before the Hamas attack and Israel’s invasion, which credible human rights groups and scholars now call genocide.
“We had friends there, we had just said goodbye to everyone,” Adria Arafat said. “We had American friends. I have a very good friend in Utah who had just come to visit her family… and she got stuck, saw horrible things, and had to try to get to the border and try to get the embassy to get her out.”
The couple managed to get most of their relatives out of Gaza because they had a privilege that many other Palestinians do not have: they could afford it financially. But unlike international coverage Because they received some Israeli hostages and family members, the Arafats – and many other Palestinian Americans like them – did not have the media attention to help pressure the United States to remove their loved ones.
“Most Americans don’t want to know the bad things, they really don’t,” Adria Arafat said. “‘Oh, the families of the hostages, we feel so bad for them,’ and this and that. Well, what about my family? What about the 67,000 Palestinians?”
Photo courtesy of Aiman Arafat
Two of Aiman Arafat’s uncles in Gaza died because they did not have access to their medication or immediate treatment, and Israeli forces destroyed most of the enclave’s healthcare system. His brother, who says he has been displaced a dozen times in Gaza, is alive but starving due to famine caused by Israel’s blockade.
As for their apartment in Gaza City, the Arafats say Israeli forces destroyed the building, allegedly using it at one point as an interrogation room. The soldiers also destroyed the house of Aiman’s mother, now in Egypt, who he says is so particular about its decoration that the family nicknamed it “the museum.”
“So Israelis go home with joy and Palestinians go home with devastation and debris,” Zogby said. “The question that no one is taking into consideration is the human cost of reconstruction. What is done with tens of thousands of children injured with no surviving family members? What do you do with the 12-year-old who has already moved 10 times in the last two years, returns to the place where he lived and not only does the house disappear, but the entire neighborhood disappears?
Photo courtesy of Aiman Arafat
Zogby joined Arafat and a couple of other Palestinian Americans this week to meet with lawmakers including Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) to ensure that Congress keeps pressure on Gaza reconstructionblocking weapons to Israel and refusing to leave Palestinian Americans and their loved ones behind now. that a fragile plan is underway.
Welch told the delegation Wednesday that a two-state solution is “a long way from here,” but that has to be the goal. starting with an increase in aid to the enclave so that Palestinians can be nourished and healed before beginning reconstruction with the help of the United States and Arab nations. Israel and the Trump administration continue Reject the idea of a Palestinian state..
On Tuesday, UN development experts estimated that rebuilding Gaza to make it safer after the war will require at least 70 billion dollars, while aid agencies said that too little aid is reaching the enclave to meet the needs of desperate Palestinians. Israel said that starting Wednesday it will only allow half the number of aid trucks originally agreed to Gaza, and the UN human rights office said Soldiers continue killing Palestinians. under the ceasefire.
Provided by Logan Bayroff
“I want the bombing to stop, I want help to come. I want people not to be able to hear the constant drones above them. That’s what I want,” Adria Arafat said. “Now the cost of that is trusting these people who have never kept a treaty, never kept their word, breaking everything they’ve ever promised. So I don’t hold my breath because if I do, I’ll turn purple and pass out.”
Ramirez, who introduced the Blocking Bombs Act, said Wednesday that she is open to the idea of a delegation of lawmakers visiting Gaza on the ground to properly assess what the next steps are to ensure security and justice for Palestinians in the short and long term. Palestinians have said for years that such justice must involve governments and the media first recognizing their humanity, just as they do with Israelis.
“Before Gaza is not like after Gaza. The world is a different place,” said Aiman Arafat. “So it is a very high price to pay, but I think I can see, taste and feel the freedom that is coming for many of my people. So we have to be hopeful and positive.”