‘We are still alive’: Friends, colleagues fundraise for SU alumnus’ evacuation from Palestine
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Madison Young first met Mohammed Shat while studying at Syracuse University. She recalled loving memories he shared about his family back home. Now, she only hears stories that worry her — stories of his family having to flee from Gaza City, the place he and his family used to call home.
“I remember (Shat) shared that he was fleeing from Khan Yunis … and how traumatizing it was because he and his family were just running past tons of bodies and bodies on the street,” Young said. “Some days they might have the freedom to look for food and water, and others they might just be fleeing nearby streets.”
Shat graduated from SU’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs as a Hubert Humphrey Fellow through the Fulbright Exchange Program in 2023. He is now trapped in Gaza with his wife and 11-year-old daughter, according to a GoFundMe campaign created by his friends and former colleagues.
Shat and his family are currently located in Rafah — a city in the southern portion of Palestine that borders Egypt — after being forced to flee from Gaza City and Khan Yunis due to recent bombings and airstrikes that destroyed their family home, Young said. She said they do not currently have a “lot of access” to actual shelter, nor to a clean source of water or food.
“Their family’s situation has been precarious and life-threatening (in) every location they’ve evacuated to,” the GoFundMe page reads. “With no end in sight, every day has become solely dedicated to survival while Shat and his family exhaust the very last of their resources.”
Young and Shahzeb Naeem, both 2023 Maxwell graduates and former peers of Shat, said they have only been able to “irregularly” contact Shat. Naeem said that there are often hours or days when Shat is unable to respond due to a lack of service or electricity.
Maka Tokmazishvili, a friend of Shat’s and a Hubert Humphrey Fellow at Maxwell, said communicating with Shat became “extremely challenging” in October 2023 due to prolonged power outages and communications blackouts in Gaza. She said Shat struggles to charge his phone and often can only convey a brief message “confirming his survival.”
“Every day we wait for his communication, which consists of a couple words: ‘We are still alive,’” Tokmazishvili wrote over WhatsApp to The Daily Orange. “His home is destroyed, they don’t have food and water. He says that the situation is growing worse day by day and he asks us to pray for them.”
Shat’s conditions in Rafah have escalated in the past few days as Israel continues to bomb Gaza, Young said. Over a million Palestinians have fled to Rafah due to Israeli bombing. At least 28,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war started, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Some Palestinians have decided to try to flee Rafah as the city braces for a potential Israeli assault. A United Nations official warned that an assault could lead to a “slaughter,” NPR reported Wednesday.
Young and Naeem said they initially became concerned for Shat and his family’s well-being around mid-October and November when many of the bombings and communication blockades worsened. Young said Shat, who has “endured a lot,” does not tend to seek out help from others, but he eventually reached out as conditions worsened.
Shat’s daughter, Eve, has also fallen ill with what “appears to be” a water-borne illness, Young said. The sickness is most likely due to contaminated water as they do not have access to clean sources of water or sufficient medical facilities where they are staying in Rafah, Young said.
“I would definitely say his daughter recovering is a high concern because their medical facilities are out of supplies,” Young said. “I don’t think (she’s) recovered much and it’s been a week to a week-and-a-half now, which is very concerning.”
When Shat began to talk about “no longer having hope,” Young said she realized how dire his situation had become.
“I think that’s a narrative that has been broadcasted very commonly across Palestinians experiencing it,” Young said. “They just see themselves dying. They don’t know when, but they don’t have hope to survive it.”
In response to increasing concerns over Shat, his family’s safety and the sickness of his daughter, Young, Naeem, Tokmazishvili and Ivana Tatar, another 2023 Maxwell graduate and a friend of Shat’s, met to discuss options to raise money and support for the family’s evacuation from Gaza.
Mohammed Shat receives a certificate for the Hubert Humphrey Fellowship program. He graduated from Syracuse University as a Fulbright Scholar.
Courtesy of Madison Young
Initially, the group reached out to Maxwell for help with evacuating Shat and his family, but were told that while the administration “empathized” with their situation, there was nothing they could do, Naeem said. With Maxwell’s ranking as one of the leading public affairs schools in the U.S., Naeem said they had hoped the school would be able to assist in the evacuation efforts, but they were left at another “dead end.”
“Maxwell tried to contact the U.S. State Department, but just given the political climate, it has been very difficult for people or even the state to evacuate people,” Naeem said. “So, we were like, ‘we just have to do this on our own.’”
Young said the GoFundMe, which they created on Jan. 30, was their second plan to raise money for Shat and his family. The overarching goal of the GoFundMe is to pay the cost for Shat and his family to evacuate Gaza and “ensure their survival,” Young said.
As of Feb. 14, the GoFundMe has raised nearly $11,000 — a bit over one-third of their $27,000 goal. If their goal is reached, $24,000 would go toward evacuating Shat’s family through the Rafah-Egypt border and $3,000 would go toward transaction costs, Young said. While their fundraising efforts received a lot of “traction” during the first two weeks, Young said they are hoping to expand their network outside of Syracuse through outreach and social media.
“It’s for them to survive,” Young said. “All of our biggest concerns are that the next day we’ll find out that it is too late and something happened to them.”
Palestinians have started to create GoFundMe accounts to secure safe passages for their families out of Gaza, with many asking for tens of thousands of dollars from strangers as a last resort to bribe their way onto the Egyptian border-crossing list — the only way currently out of Gaza for many families, according to The Daily Beast.
Young and Naeem said they had hoped the Maxwell School would publish a statement of support for Shat and his family or spread the GoFundMe, but were informed that the school cannot make statements of support for individual persons. Young said the school has not been “super responsive” and that she is “disappointed” in their lack of willingness to amplify their message.
The university did not respond to The D.O.’s request for comment.
Naeem said the outpouring of support from the Maxwell community has been very “heartening.” He said everybody loved Shat and has been supporting him and his family through donations and messages.
“It’s not even political,” Naeem said. “It’s a very humanitarian issue. It’s simply about helping an amazing person.”
Shat has dedicated his career to humanitarian development and serving his community, Tokmazishvili said. Through his experience as a monitoring and evaluation officer at Catholic Relief Services and later as a monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning officer with Mercy Corps, Shat ensured the safety and provision of food and resources for those in the Gaza Strip for years, Tokmazishvili said.
Friends and colleagues described Shat as a “friendly and welcoming” person who always remains optimistic, even when facing hardship. Naeem said Shat has always been someone who will talk to anyone and put others before himself.
“Despite the daily horrors faced alongside his family, Mo’s consideration and care for others remains unwavering,” the GoFundMe page reads. “Mo’s deep commitment to humanitarian efforts has positively impacted many lives; the current crisis in Gaza has put him and his family in a position where they now are the ones in need of immediate assistance.”
Despite the continuing violence, Shat never had any intention of leaving Gaza City, his hometown, until the airstrikes and bombings forced him to, Tokmazishvili and Naeem said.
“Mo and I (have) wonderful memories together. Saying farewell to him on our last day in the U.S. was the worst part of our journey because, deep down, we all knew he was returning to a harsher reality than any of us,” Tokmazishvili wrote. “When we inquired why he hadn’t left Gaza before, his response was unwavering: ‘That’s my home.’”
