{"id":1943,"date":"2026-07-22T06:07:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T06:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topmovingpross.com\/?p=1943"},"modified":"2026-07-22T06:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T06:07:11","slug":"a-palestinian-family-split-between-israel-and-gaza-reunites-after-years-of-war-and-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topmovingpross.com\/?p=1943","title":{"rendered":"A Palestinian family split between Israel and Gaza reunites after years of war and loss"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NAZARETH, Israel (AP) \u2014 The last time Mais al-Gharam saw her seven siblings was in the Gaza Strip<\/span> two months before the war<\/span>. That was before she left the Palestinian territory to go live in Israel and before an Israeli airstrike on the family\u2019s home killed her parents and younger brother.<\/p>\n

Read more Iran\u2019s demands over the Strait of Hormuz would set a dangerous precedent, Rubio tells ASEAN leaders<\/a><\/p>\n

But on this day, she waited hopefully outside Israel\u2019s Kerem Shalom crossing<\/span>, scanning for a glimpse of her surviving brothers and sisters as they made their way through the gates and out of Gaza.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never stopped being a family,\u201d said Mais, who is 23 and the eldest of eight siblings born to a father from Gaza and a mother who was a Palestinian citizen of Israel. \u201cBut every day I wondered whether I\u2019d see them again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family finally reunited this month following a yearslong effort by Mais and a team of lawyers to get her brothers and sisters out. They met outside the border crossing and then drove together to the city of Nazareth, where their mother\u2019s extended family showered the siblings with hugs and homemade food.<\/p>\n

The reunion carried joy, grief and a quiet disbelief: Despite the odds, Mais had secured Israeli passports for her Gaza-born siblings, ages 8 to 22, and arranged for them to come live with her.<\/p>\n

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But while they had found one another again, they could never reclaim what they lost.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like coming back from the grave,\u201d Faraj al-Gharam, their maternal grandfather, said of his grandchildren. In Gaza, he said, \u201chuman life has no value.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hundreds of Palestinian families are split between Israel and Gaza<\/h2>\n

The family\u2019s story begins in 2002 when Murad al-Gharam, a native of Gaza, was working construction in Israel on a temporary job permit. There, he met and married Amal Karim, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who lived in Nazareth. Soon, they had a baby girl and named her Mais.<\/p>\n

Decades ago, such marriages were common between Palestinians who lived in the West Bank<\/span>, Gaza and Israel, before two Palestinian uprisings<\/span> and Israel\u2019s response closed off the occupied territories.<\/p>\n

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When Murad and Amal met, it was at the height of the Second Intifada<\/span>. As violence raged, Israel clamped down on work permits for Palestinians, putting Murad\u2019s status in Israel in jeopardy.<\/p>\n

He and Amal moved to Gaza permanently, settling down with Mais in Nuseirat, a built-up refugee camp in the enclave\u2019s central region. Murad began work as a taxi driver, and the couple had seven more children \u2014 Zuhour, 22; Jwaher, 21; Sabreen, 20; Ghfran, 17, Fady, 16; Maisara, 11; and Arjwan, 8.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe lived here together as a family … and never lacked anything,\u201d Zuhour said.<\/p>\n

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