The news has been inundated with reports of violence occurring in the Gaza Strip, and the attempted take-over of the Gaza Strip by Hamas. This has led to the suffering of many people caught in the middle of this conflict, especially a mother and her daughter who had been living in the city of Khan Younis.
It was less than a year ago when a group of militants, dressed in black and armed with guns, stormed their house. Fearing for their lives, the mother and daughter tried to flee but they were unable to escaped the militants’ gun fire. They were taken prisoner by Hamas and since then, their story has been largely overshadowed by the chaos surrounding the Israeli-Palestine conflict.
The mother’s plea for help is heart breaking. During a personal visit to her daughter’s prison, she saw that her daughter’s face was bloodied and battered, a clear result of the harsh conditions suffering within Hamas prisons. She pleaded with the international community to help her, and bring her daughter to safety.
United Nations representatives joined in on the desperate plea to get the found the daughter out of the prison and into safety. They urged the militant group of Hamas to release the daughter, and along with the mother.
The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, expressed his concerns on the situation, saying “I fully understand the desperation and fear of this mother-daughter pair, and I urge the parties involved to release them as soon as possible, and in accordance with international law.”
Unfortunately, these pleas have yet to be answered, and for the mother and her daughter, time is quickly running out. For her time is running out, and she needs the help of the international community and the people who can get her daughter out of Hamas captivity.