MONROE — Anastasia Yacoub never expected that when she left her home last August for a 10-month foreign exchange stay in America, she would never get to sleep in her bed again.
But that’s exactly what has happened. On May 8, the sophomore from Palestine was sitting down to watch a movie with her host family, Larry and Mary Kloepping of Juda. That’s when she got a devastating phone call from her best friend from back home in Gaza City: Her home had been destroyed in an air raid by the Israeli Defense Federation (IDF). The devastation was collateral damage to a further objective: To take out three militants of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement that lived nearby.
“Out of nowhere, I received a phone call from my best friend who lives right in front of me,” said Anastasia, who is here through the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange & Study. “I answered thinking nothing of it, but then I heard the ambulance and though, ‘Oh no. Wait — is it near us, near our apartment? Are my parents OK?”
Her friend was crying.
“She never cries, so when I saw her crying I thought they were dead. I asked her if the bombs hit our apartment, and she just stayed quiet and did not know what to say,” Anastasia said. “That’s when I broke down. I thought my family was dead — my little brother and my dad and my mom. I went outside and I cried.”
However, her family survived. While Anastasia could not make immediate contact with any of her family members, her friend was able to.
“They don’t know how they survived. Thankfully they were very lucky,” Anastasia said.
They survived by taking refuge in Anastasia’s bedroom. In any other room in the house, her father, mother and 5-year-old brother would have died.
“The whole ceiling fell on the living room. My room wasn’t affected, thankfully, because there was one rocket that didn’t go off. If it had, they literally would have been gone,” Anastasia said.
Her father received some minor injuries from a window falling on him.
As she tried to gather more information and come to terms with what happened, she continued to attend school and play soccer. However, the end of the school and soccer season means something even tougher for her: It’ll be time to go home.
“The program, they have to send me back. But I told them, ‘if you send me back, I don’t know where to go.’ My parents are really stressed right now. … We have two weeks left,” Anastasia said.
Helping a friend
Thinking quickly, some in the student body got together almost immediately, trying to help their friend out with more than just thoughts and prayers. The Equity 4 Everyone (E4E) group started a GoFundMe campaign, initially looking for $2,000 to help Anastasia and her family — however that may be.
“The day after Anastasia posted about it, we had an E4E meeting at school during flex, said senior Taylor Jacobson. “We briefed everyone to make sure we were all on the same page. And we all agreed that there had to be something we could do to help. We brainstormed a couple options of how to do a fundraiser. We decided GoFundMe would probably be the most effective course of action with my generation. We raised a lot of money really quickly for her and it was super awesome to see.”
The $2,000 mark was met within 24 hours, and in just a week’s time, more than $5,000 had been donated. As of press time, more than 120 donations had come in.
“It was really amazing to see people pitch in to help a community member in need,” Jacobson said.
Fundraiser admins are Jacobson and two MHS staff members: English teacher and E4E advisor Samantha Rudi and counselor Alicia Ziolkowski.
“I love Americans. I literally cried I was so happy. When I told my mom, they were all so thankful. We need the help because we don’t have relatives around us to go live with,” Anastasia said.
This is not Jacobson’s first foray into helping others. She’s been a planner and supporter of a number of events to help disparaged community members over the last couple of years and has been an advocate for her classmates through the E4E group in the school. She will attend Texas A&M International University and plans to become a civil rights lawyer. She was in the basketball program with Anastasia this past winter, said admitted she actually didn’t know the sophomore all that well. Jacobson said finding out about Anastasia’s hardship opened her own eyes in a hurry.
“I was honestly completely oblivious to the idea that she came from a war-torn country until the bombing. It’s unfortunate that it took a tragedy like that for me to realize the gravity of the conflict, but now I’m invested and learning every day,” Jacobson said. “She is a very sweet girl. And she is very grateful for all the support from the community. She is truly a wonderful person and I hope that the money will help her reestablish herself and her family in whatever capacity that may be.”
Rudi said they are keeping the fundraiser open even after Anastasia is set to head “home”.
“Anastasia’s need is substantial, and we want to continue to help,” Rudi said.
Living in a war zone
Palestine has been a civilization for thousands of years. It is the birthplace of both Judaism and Christianity, and has been controlled by major kingdoms and empires throughout the centuries. From Ancient Egypt, Ancient Israel and Judah, the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great, the Roman Empire, several Muslim Caliphates, crusaders and the Ottoman Empire, then to the United Kingdom between World War I and World War II.
When the British ended its colonial rule in 1948, both Islamic Palestinians and Jewish Israelis wanted to control the region. The clashes have been regular since. Eventually in 1967, Israel succeeded and took over rule, displacing about 700,000 Palestinians in the process. That hasn’t stopped the two feuding sides from trading blows since, however. Palestine currently has control of the Gaza Strip along the Mediterranean Sea, which includes Gaza City, and the interior West Bank.
In 1968, Anastasia’s grandparents had to emigrate away from their home “when the Israelis came,” she said.
Today, 138 of the 193 countries in the United Nations recognizes Palestine as its own country, though not the United States.
The recent strikes came about a week after a PIJ spokesman died following an 87-day hunger strike in Israeli prison and PIJ militants retaliated, launching more than 100 rockets.
The next day, a ceasefire was called between the rivaling sides. Then, at 2 a.m. local time on May 9, Israel broke the ceasefire by launching an air raid with 40 aircraft. The death total is at 26 people, including the three targeted militants, their wives and several children. A Russian citizen, Dr. Jamal Khaswan working in Gaza City as a dentist, was also killed, along with his wife and 21-year-old son in the apartment above the Yacoub home. Two of his children, including a 10-year-old girl, survived.
“I never thought it would be us. Bombings always happen, but I was never scared thinking we would actually get bombed. But we did,” Anastasia said. “Especially on my exchange year. I just never expected to get a call and think that my parents died and that my apartment had been bombed.”
The IDF claimed rebel militants responded with another 938 rockets launched into Israel. Two days later, the IDF killed two more targeted PIJ commanders.
Among those condemning the trading of rocket fire is the United Nations, which has called for moderation and a restart of peace talks. A new ceasefire took hold May 13.
Alexander Yacoub, Anastasia’s brother, called her since and told her he wants to move to the U.S.
“He was telling me he wants to go to America where there is no bombings,” she said. “That’s a 5-year-old. He’s traumatized. This is what every child goes through in Gaza and Palestine, and that is not normal. That is terrible that they are traumatized like this.”
Where will the Yacoub family go?
“We can’t live in our house right now because it’s literally destroyed,” she said. “My neighbors unfortunately died. Innocent people died. A lot of them. And it went on for a couple of days, and we were afraid it would go on for 51 days like the last war in 2021. Those people, their houses haven’t been rebuilt. A lot of people are on the streets right now.”
Where the Yacoub’s home will be is still up in the air.
“We don’t know yet. We’re trying to figure out somewhere to stay. Right now they are at a friend’s house,” Anastasia said.
No one knows quite for sure how the money will be used: It could go toward a new apartment, traveling to a new area of Palestine, or possibly emigrating out of the area entirely. After the recent air strikes, Israeli authorities suspended the entry and departure of people and commodities from Gaza through two crossing points until further notice, according to international news organization Al Jazeera.
“Since her family is without a safe place to live right now, the funds will be used to help them establish a new sense of home somewhere safe. They might also use it for other basic necessities that they are struggling to cover at this time,” Jacobson said.
Anastasia admitted to never giving much thought to what her future studies may hold. However, she’s now interested in running an organization to assist Palestinian children that have faced continual hardship.
“I am interested in many things, but one thing that hasn’t changed is interest in an organization about Palestine. A lot of kids have no future in Palestine, and I just want to help the people in my country,” she said.