Three daughters of the Kaoud family made an emotional plea Thursday for help getting their family members trapped in the Gaza Strip back home to Southern California.
As the Israel-Hamas war rages on, the Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR-LA, hosted a press conference in Anaheim with family members of six Palestinian American citizens who haven’t been able to leave Gaza. Officials from Muslim and Palestinian American communities in Southern California called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties in Gaza – and for President Joe Biden to make bringing trapped family members home at priority.
“The situation is dire… we feel abandoned, unimportant and unheard. We need our father back home safe, and every U.S. citizen back home safe,” said Shamiss Kaoud, who lives in Moreno Valley. “No one is listening. No one is helping. It’s as if nobody cares. Shouldn’t being a U.S. citizen matter?”
CAIR-LA says an estimated 600 Palestinian American citizens are currently stranded in the war zone, where there have been deadly air strikes and food, medicine and supplies are becoming increasingly scarce.
Kaoud’s father, Jamal, was born in a Gaza refugee camp. He came to the U.S. to pursue civil engineering and went on to build many Orange County buildings with his company, she said. Jamal Kaoud was visiting Gaza with his brothers on vacation before the war broke out, his daughter said, adding the 68-year-old wears a pacemaker and defibrillator, and is “running out of his daily medication.”
“Not only is he worried about surviving the air strikes, he is worried about whether or not his medication will last,” she said. “It is imperative that he gets back home.”
Kaoud said that she and family members have reached out to federal and state representatives, U.S. embassies and government offices, saying there has been zero aid or urgent actions in response – she said they have even been hung up…
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