On June 22, 2026, Kareem from Rajaeen sent me the following email:
Hi Sena
It’s been about six months since I last wrote to you. I want to be honest about why.
Somewhere over these months, my hope started to slip. Not all at once — quietly. You watch the situation get worse, you watch nothing change, and a part of you starts to believe that nothing can. That belief is dangerous. It doesn’t announce itself. It just sits there, lowering what you think you’re capable of, shrinking what you do — until you’ve gone quiet without ever deciding to. That’s where I was.
And then I met someone who pulled me out of it.
She had come to San Jose, CA, from Gaza, here for her daughter — a girl severely wounded in the war, brought to the US for medical care she couldn’t get at home. We sat and talked for a long time. She told me what her family had lived through — the months of bombardment, the fear, the things done to them that aren’t mine to repeat. Those are hers.
But there’s one thing I have to share — because I haven’t been able to put it down since.
She was describing how her family lives right now, in a tent in Gaza: the huge rats that come at night, the surveillance that never lets up, the quadcopters that fly straight into the tent to photograph them where they sleep. No walls. No privacy. Something watching, always.
And then, without flinching, she said it: “We’ve become animals.” Not in their eyes — in her own. She had started to believe it.
That’s what broke through to me. The cruelty isn’t only in the bombs and the blockade. It’s in what it does to a person’s sense of their own humanity — until a mother, sitting across from me, here for her wounded daughter, half-believes that lie about her own people.
She is not an animal. Her daughter is not. No one in Gaza is. And every week the world looks away, that lie gets a little easier to believe. I left that conversation angry — at the silence, and at my own. Because staying quiet is exactly what lets the lie win.
So I gathered myself, took a breath, and stood back up. We’re going for another round. That’s what Rajaeen was built for.
And I’m not coming back empty-handed. Starting July 1st, we’re launching something with Glia — a medical solidarity organization working on the ground in Gaza. I’ll tell you exactly how it works in a few days. For now, I just wanted you to hear it from me first: we’re back.
Thank you for still being here. It means more than you know.
راجعين — we shall return.
Kareem
Founder, Rajaeen
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Anyway, if you want to support Rajaeen, you can get a 10% off discount when you subscribe to their email list.
Other Campaigns To Support:
- Urgent: Help a young family survive – Progress of Fundraising: 80%
- Urgent: Send Aid to Gaza via Trucks through HCI w / Kareem Abu Kwaik – Progress of Fundraising: 90% (Goal amount increased from $50,000 to $100,000.)
- Help Ibrahim with Down syndrome and his family survive. – Progress of Fundraising: 97% (Goal amount increased from €185,000 to €200,000)
- Support Fadia’s Fashion Dream in Gaza – Progress of Fundraising: 13%
- Rekindling Hope: A Fundraising Call – Progress of Fundraising: 99%
- Help The Alihasan Family Continue Their Education! – Progress of Fundraising: 25%
- Beloved friends,family,and kind-hearted supporte – Progress of Fundraising: 69%
- Help Sarah escape from war-torn Gaza – Progress of Fundraising: 55%
- Ongoing:
- You can also find the following referral links on my Travel Resources page:
- Wear The Peace-Get your $10 off $49
- italki
- eSIMs:
- Edward Said Libraries
- Shop Palestine
- Donation Requests
- You can also find the following referral links on my Travel Resources page: