SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio teacher who has family in Gaza is in utter devastation over the Israel-Hamas war.
“I haven’t been sleeping very well. I haven’t been eating very well. I could not focus and concentrate on my job as a teacher. I am so distracted by what’s happening,” Asil Elashy said. “Killing is never going to be justifiable, killing innocent people, never going to be justifiable at all.”
The UTSA graduate who has lived in San Antonio for 25 years said the last time she visited her family in Gaza was in 2021. Elashy said getting to her home is never cheap and never easy.
Elashy said what should be about a one-hour commute from Rafah Crossing Point on the Egypt-Gaza border to her home instead is a four-day wait that she describes as oppressive and humiliating.
“My dad never trusted me to cross the border alone, and so he used to go to Egypt and go through all of these checkpoints. (A) tiring, struggling old man just to ensure that I was crossing with him, holding his hands and back again,” Elashy said.
As the war rages, Elashy said the Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in Gaza, has been placed on high alert.
“They have a threat in the morning to evacuate. And now I’m scared because if they bomb that Shifa Hospital, my family lives right behind it, right behind,” Elashy said.
Elashy’s family along with millions of others are locked in the enclave. More than one-million Palestinians have fled their homes as Israel issued an alert for an evacuation. She said some people have evacuated to the south, as ordered, and then back to where they were, but ultimately have no escape.
“My mother evacuated with my brother and his little two kids to the southern part, like Israel has been saying. But the southern part is still getting bombed. Where do you want us to go? Where do you want us to go?” Elashy said.
Elashy said supplies are running out and the electricity has been cut off.
“They are completely isolated. They don’t watch the news, they don’t have power, they don’t have TV’s, and so all they do is live in the darkness, hearing voices and hearing noise and hearing the bombs. They can only tell how close the bombs are from the sound,” she said.
Elashy said as Gaza is reduced to rubble, she fears her family could be next.
“My eyes are dry now from the crying. It’s constant worrying when you have your loved ones and you’re checking on them daily to make sure they are alive,” she said.
The U.S. and Egypt have reached an agreement with Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza through the Rafah Crossing, but Elashy said those supplies have yet to arrive.
“It is one of the crucial things that they need to get. People in Gaza right now are out of water. There is no clean water there. They are out of medical supplies. It is a humanitarian catastrophe,” Elashy said.