Plymouth family with three small children desperate to return home from Gaza
LOWELL - A Plymouth family is desperate to return home to Massachusetts as they struggle to escape war-torn Gaza.
Hazem Shafai's brother told WBZ TV that the family was visiting loved ones in northern Gaza when the war broke out.
"They were planning to come back, but unfortunately things happen and the war started," Hani Shafai said.
The family of five, including three small children, have been trapped in the Gaza strip ever since, traveling from shelter to shelter to escape the barrage of bombs overhead.
"I got a call from my brother at two o'clock this morning," Hani Shafai said. "The area that they were living at is getting bombed really heavily last night."
A glimpse of what his brother, his wife and three kids have been going through to stay alive on the Gaza border. They planned to return to Massachusetts, but now seek refuge in a rehab center turned bomb shelter Thursday night. It's a culture shock to their life in Plymouth.
"I am it's going to have long-term impacts on them. Because the bombing is really close and it's almost continuous," Hani Shafai explained.
Water, food and supplies are running low. Hani Shafai said his brother had been waiting in line for bread to feed his family every day until the bombs started narrowing in on his shelter.
"All of our conversation was providing shelter for the nightfall because at night the bombing intensifies," he said.
"There is a focus on getting out people out safely and as quick as possible," Sen. Elizabeth Warren said at an event in Lowell.
WBZ TV asked senators Warren and Ed Markey what's being done to free Americans trapped in Gaza.
"We're going to continue to focus on it so that they will be able to hopefully be able to escape through the Egyptian border," Sen. Markey said. "But it's absolutely imperative and we've communicated this to the highest levels of the White House how critical it is for us to have a response to it."
Hani Shafai's echoing that urgency, praying for his brother's family to return home safely to Massachusetts.
"[They] definitely don't want to go back there if they make it out alive," he said.
