A mother says she’s “living in a nightmare” as she waits to hear from her daughter and 10 family members who are trapped inside Gaza.
Lalah Ali Faten, from Manchester, told Sky News she last spoke to her 29-year-old daughter Zaynab Wandawi on the phone on Thursday night when she could hear “rocket fire”.
On Friday at 3pm UK time she received a WhatsApp message but hasn’t heard from her again after Israel cut communications to Gaza.
She told Sky News: “The evening before [Thursday] she called me at 10.30pm our time and she was saying goodnight to me, reassuring me that she was okay, but I could hear rockets going overhead.
Israel-Gaza latest: War against Hamas ‘in next stage’
Zaynab Wandawi (right) and her mother Lalah Ali Faten
“She started to whisper and told me ‘mum I need to go now’ and that was the last time I heard her voice. I don’t know when I’m going to hear from her again.”
Zaynab travelled to Gaza with her in-law’s family to attend a wedding just days before the 7 October atrocity which reignited the brutal war.
For the last three weeks all 11 family members including a 13-year-old boy have been trying to leave Gaza and return to the UK.
Ms Ali Faten says it has been “harrowing and very traumatic” and she has her phone with her “all the time”.
Zaynab Wandawi
She said: “I don’t know what’s happened to my daughter, I don’t know what’s happened to her husband or his family. Did they make it through the night? This is just a living nightmare.
“As a parent you always feel that you should be there for your children when they need you but in this instance to be completely helpless is very painful and you feel useless.”
The family, who were initially in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, were forced to evacuate following intense bombing.
They fled south to the Rafah border where they’ve been sheltering in a family member’s home.
From there, Zaynab shared a video with her family showing the destruction of properties from bombs behind her pleading for a ceasefire and to help her and her family return to the UK.
“Every single day we’re bombarded with hundreds of bombs, thousands of bombs have landed on houses and hospitals and schools and mosques,” she says in the video.
“Please help call for a ceasefire to stop the bombs, please no more bombs, no more children need to die.”
But Ms Ali Faten told Sky News there is some hope: “The vision of her returning back home is keeping me going.
“It’s the hope that makes me get out of bed in the morning and do what I need to do and just function and get through the day. It’s that hope that’s making me go on.”
British nationals in Gaza are being advised to register their presence on the Foreign Office’s travel advice page and contact the department if in need of help.