GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) – A Gaza man living in the Piedmont Triad, as the Israel-Hamas war rages on, is trying to reunite with his family.
Salah El-Sadi came to America as part of UNC Greensboro’s Fulbright Scholarship Program in mid-September. A few weeks into the program, war broke out. Now he’s stuck in Greensboro, and his family is stuck in Gaza.
Several community members are making sure El-Sadi doesn’t have to worry about where he’s going to sleep or how he’ll get his next meal. They’re also helping him raise money in the hopes that he’ll be able to get his wife and two young children out of Gaza and to safety.
El-Sadi said he feels guilty knowing the people he loves most are living in a tent and he’s here.
“When I eat something, I cannot complete my lunch, my breakfast, my dinner,” he said. “I cannot complete because I think about my family. How can I eat and my family without food?”
El-Sadi spends his days in a hotel room watching the conflict in Gaza play out on television, knowing his family is living it.
“Follow every day, every hour, every minute,” he said. “I try to call to call my family, to connect, to follow news. Yes, all my times are at TV and for the news, when the war will stop or end.”
He gets an update from his wife about once a week on his five-year-old daughter and three-year-old son. The couple exchanges text messages when they can.
“I try to send messages unfortunately there is no reply because connection is lost,” said El-Sadi.
The family’s home and everything in it is destroyed.
“All my memories in this house, everything unfortunately is destroyed,” said El-Sadi. “I’m thinking about after war how can we rebuild?”
His family had to move to Deir Al-Balah, a Palestinian city in the central Gaza Strip, where they have no access to medical care, electricity or other basic needs.
“There is no water, no food,” said El-Sadi. “My wife and kids are living in a tent because our home’s destroyed. We lost everything, our jobs, everything we lost.”
It’s why he’s working to get his family to safety. He’s raising money with the help of community members through a GoFundMe to get his wife, kids, mother, father and siblings out of Gaza and to Egypt.
“This is somebody who is now essentially a part of our community and I think it would be great to see more people come together and just lift him up and help him,” said Nadia Schmidt, a Greensboro native who’s helping with fundraising efforts.
Schmidt and her family are helping by getting El-Sadi’s story out on social media. So far, hundreds of people have donated more than $18,000, getting El-Sadi one step closer to seeing his loved ones again.
“Every day I pray for god to save them, to protect them,” he said. “I send this message to be patient.”
He needs more than $6,000 per person to help them make the journey from Gaza to Egypt. Click here to donate.
