From sesame covered dates to online appeals: one Palestinian woman’s mission to get her family out of Gaza

In a quiet neighborhood in the Atlanta exurb of Flowery Branch, a lone Palestinian flag flutters in the wind. Next to it, the Stars and Stripes hang beside the garage door. 

The gray two-story house belongs to a young newlywed couple – Manar Anabtawi, a Palestinian woman who arrived in the US from Palestine’s West Bank just six months ago, and her husband, a Palestinian-American who grew up in Kansas. Their neat home, sitting on a peaceful street of identical houses, all with manicured lawns, has been the epicenter of Manar’s efforts to help her mother’s family members, who are trapped thousands of miles away facing hunger and Israeli artillery and airstrikes in Gaza. 

Since October, Manar said, her uncles and their children have been fleeing from one refugee camp to another, just trying to stay alive.  

“I feel the responsibility to help them,” she told 285 South, sitting at her kitchen table, where a printout of their photos were placed, alongside small paper bags of handcrafted dessert dates. She had been selling the dates, which she rolled with sesame seeds (that she brought back with her from Palestine) and shredded coconut, at a recent Ramadan bazaar off I-85 Access Road, to help raise money for her family in Gaza.  

Pulling out her phone, she opened a photo and pointed to a staircase in a building. “That’s where they were living,” she said. Like thousands of other Gazans, her relatives had fled to Rafah on the Egyptian border after their home was destroyed. “My uncle was actually living under the stairs.” As she was talking, an Instagram alert popped up. Her 21-year-old cousin Hoda had just posted an update – she and her family had now fled Rafah and had just arrived at another refugee camp, this time in Khan Younis. The image showed plastic tarp and sheets – the floors and walls of their new homes – and bundles of bags and backpacks piled into a corner.

Manar has been communicating with them off and on, but the Internet connection in Gaza isn’t reliable, she said. She gets most of her updates from her mom, who lives in the West Bank. Still, when she has been able to speak to them, there are some things they’ve said that she can’t get out of her mind. 

One of her uncles, she said, begged for her help to get his wife and children out of Gaza. “He’s saying, I don’t want to see my kids in pieces. I don’t want to live to see such a thing.” Another uncle, she said, told her, “If you love us, please pray for us to die. And this is what’s breaking me the most now,” she said, her eyes welling up. 

There are over 12,000 active GoFundMe appeals for Palestinians that have been launched since October 7, according to the company’s spokesperson, many of which are trying to raise money to pay for evacuation fees which can cost between $5,000 and $7,500 a person. 

“My mother’s sister, she told me, a lot of people [are] doing this GoFund…let’s try to do one.” 

So Manar launched a campaign to raise $75,000 – enough money to evacuate her 15 relatives out of Gaza. She watched some YouTube videos, created an account, and uploaded the information requested, which she said was all straightforward. The hardest part was asking for money. “You think it’s easy for people to ask for money. It’s not easy. It’s the hardest thing that you can do. But I [must] ask for money or leave them to die.”

Since late February, Manar has raised $5,817. The dates she’s sold have added around an extra 200 dollars.

She’s still far from her goal.

“I don’t know what I need to do, because like, I’m out of solutions honestly,” she said. 

She has been posting the fundraiser on social media, and has created an Instagram account for her dates, Manara Sweets, but neither have gotten much traction, especially here in Atlanta, where she is a newcomer. Apart from one Palestinian friend in Suwanee and some of her husband’s work colleagues, she said, “I don’t know anybody here.” 

So Manar has been looking for IT jobs (she worked as a software engineer in the West Bank), hoping that once she earns enough, she’ll be able to get her family members out herself.  She’s been taking online classes to get additional certifications, and has attended two “Women in Technology” networking events, she said. “I’m killing myself to find a job.”  

And she hasn’t given up on Manara Sweets yet – she has a few new recipes in development, including a layered dessert made of baked oats, greek yogurt, and stewed strawberries. She’s submitted an application to set up a table at the Flowery Branch Farmers Market, but she hasn’t heard anything back yet.

Adjusting to life in Georgia hasn’t been easy for Manar, but she’s focused on the bigger picture. “I don’t have time to feel my sadness…because there is something bigger happening there. So the main thing I [have been] thinking of is like okay, we want this to end and we want our family to be saved there.”