Eastern Iowans fear for family in Gaza, Israel

It took two days for Anne Hagie, an Atkins teacher, to learn whether her siblings survived the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. Her sister, a nurse, drove two men to the hospital as mortars fell near Ashkelon, an Israeli city near the Gaza border.

Yaser AbuDagga couldn't eat or sleep during a communications blackout in Gaza because he feared his father, brother and sisters were dead. The Coralville engineer now is working to get his 84-year-old father — also a U.S. citizen — out of Gaza.

“They are lucky they are still alive,” AbuDagga, 54, said of his family. “Hundreds of people die every day.”

Hagie is a Jew, AbuDagga a Muslim. Their families live on opposite sides of a generations-old conflict. But the Eastern Iowans both fear for their loved ones in the Middle East, and wish there was a way for Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace.

Hamas, which controls the Gaza strip but is considered a terrorist group by the United States, launched an Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel, killing 1,400 people and taking over 200 people hostage.

Israel declared war Oct. 8 on Hamas and has been bombing Gaza for weeks, destroying buildings and killing more than 9,000 Palestinians, many of them civilians, according to the Associated Press. Israeli soldiers this week started a ground invasion.

Kibbutz rampage

Hagie’s sister and her family live just a few miles from Gaza’s northern border in a kibbutz, a small town centered on a communal farm. There are about 270 kibbutzim, which are unique to Israel and based on socialist ideas about collective living, NPR reported.

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“Living in a kibbutz, they have members that guard the place 24/7,” said Hagie, 60, who has visited her sister’s kibbutz. Hagie does not want to publicize her siblings’ names for fear it might make them a target of Hamas. “Luckily, the kibbutz members guarding caught the terrorists at the very beginning and were able to ward them off. It's one of the few kibbutz not destroyed.”

In Kfar Aza, another Israeli kibbutz of about 750 people, Hamas gunmen breached the border fence, killed residents and burned houses and cars, Reuters reported.

Hagie’s sister, an emergency department nurse in the nearby city of Ashkelon, saw two Israeli guards who had been shot by militants. She loaded them into her car and drove them to the hospital, without knowing the scope or location of other Hamas attacks, Hagie said.

“Most of her family and the rest had already left for southern Israel,” Hagie said. Her sister had stayed because she was needed at the hospital. “Her whole kibbutz has been displaced.”

Gazans evacuated

In the days after Israel declared war, it launched hundreds of airstrikes and cut off food, fuel and electricity to Gaza. Israel’s military told more than 1 million Palestinians to evacuate to southern Gaza. Others who lived on the Gaza side of the border with Israel also were told to leave.

AbuDagga’s family, who live in Abasan al-Kabira, were ordered to go to Khan Yunis, a larger city farther from the border.

“Gaza is one of the highest-populated areas in the world,” AbuDagga said. “Now they are pushing everybody — 2.2 million people — into an area less than half of Gaza. Some of the places, there are like eight people living in a two- or three-bedroom apartment. It's become really, really hard to function.”

AbuDagga’s father went to live with a friend. AbuDagga’s brother’s family had to split up and his sisters are staying with in-laws and friends.

“They are lucky they found a place. A lot of other people had to move into schools, hospitals, parking lots,” he said.

While his family has so far survived the shelling by the Israeli military, they have no water for bathing or using the toilet and only sporadic electricity from solar panels to charge their cellphones. Their food supply is bread and a few remaining canned goods.

During a communications blackout last weekend, AbuDagga said he could not eat or sleep for about 30 hours until he heard his family was safe.

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U.S. citizens trying to get out

Ibrahim AbuDagga, 84, of Coralville, has been living in Gaza since 2020, when he went to visit his children and grandchildren there. First the COVID-19 pandemic kept him in Abasan, then he had a stroke. But with the danger in Gaza, Yaser AbuDagga wants his father to come home.

“I've been in contact with the (U.S.) State Department,” Yaser AbuDagga said. Officials sent AbuDagga an email saying they tried to call his father last weekend, but the older man didn’t answer. That call likely came during the communications blackout, AbuDagga said. “It's really frustrating.”

After weeks of waiting, more than 400 American citizens have been cleared to leave Gaza this week. Ibrahim wasn’t on the first list, but his son has been told his father will be allowed to leave soon.

“I have been in contact with the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, but they did not have an estimate on when the next list will be out,” AbuDagga texted The Gazette on Thursday. When Ibrahim is cleared to leave Gaza, AbuDagga or his brother will need to fly to Egypt to meet him and help him make the trip back to Iowa.

Fear for the future

As the war wages on, Hagie’s 18-year-old niece is in the middle of compulsory military service required of all young men and women in Israel.

“People don't realize that in Israel, when you graduate from high school, when you turn 18, it's mandatory to go into the army,” Hagie said. She does not think her niece will be called to the front lines.

AbuDagga worries for his 15-year-old nephew, who has never been outside Gaza. “He went through five major bombing campaigns,” he said. “Imagine how those kids are growing up to be.”

AbuDagga would like to see the U.S. government do more to discourage Israeli attacks on civilian hubs, like a refugee camp hit earlier this week. The United States also must pressure Israel to let more food, water and medicine into Gaza, he said.

With reports of backlash against Jews in the United States increasing, Hagie is choosing to livestream services at Temple Judah via Zoom rather than going to the Cedar Rapids synagogue in person.

“We have a tight-knit community and you know who is being affected by this,” she said. “You hold them close.”

Comments: (319) 339-3157; erin.jordan@thegazette.com