Dear Friends,
For many Palestinians, life is shaped not only by war and violence, but by a system of occupation that imposes permits, checkpoints, residency restrictions, and bureaucracy that keeps families separated and people trapped in uncertainty for years.
Today, thousands of Palestinians live without secure legal status, unable to move freely, study, work, visit family members, or travel without fear. Palestinians from Gaza living in the West Bank are especially vulnerable. Many spend years trying to regularize their residency through a process that can drag on indefinitely, leaving them at constant risk of being forcibly returned to Gaza.
This has been the reality for our friend and colleague Fatima for more than six years.
Fatima has worked with Combatants for Peace since 2022. She works with young Palestinians becoming leaders in the peacebuilding field, teaches nonviolent resistance classes, and mentors many young activists - especially young women who see in her a model of strength, compassion, and determination. She is deeply respected by everyone she works with, and our office always feels brighter when Fatima is there.
In 2025, during one of the first full staff meetings we were finally able to hold together again in Beit Jala, we sat around the table checking in with one another after months of devastation and grief. When it was Fatima’s turn to speak, she told us how her mother had been killed in Gaza by an Israeli drone. We sat in silence listening to her describe her loss. Many of us cried with her.
Somehow, Fatima finished speaking the way she so often does - with a smile.
Anyone who knows Fatima knows her warmth, empathy, and deep commitment to peace and human dignity. Even after everything she has endured, she continues to care for others, support her community, and believe in a different future.
Now Fatima and her children need our help.
A fundraiser has been created by our partners Satyam Homeland, to support the legal process that would finally allow Fatima and her family to obtain residency status and live without the daily fear of separation or deportation. Her full story is shared here.
If you are able to contribute, or share the fundraiser with others, it would mean a great deal to all of us. We want Fatima and her children to have the basic right to live safely and freely, without fear of being forcibly separated from the life they have built.
#SafetyForFatima
#6YearsTooLong
