STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A situation that is every parent’s worst nightmare is coming to an end for a Prince’s Bay mother who will be reunited with her three children in Egypt after they were trapped in Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas War.
Dina Massoud, a native Palestinian who left Gaza in 2017 after getting divorced, was horrified when she learned her three children living with her ex-husband had found themselves in the middle of a war zone.
The media reported that she was “pleading with the world, pleading with America, pleading with Biden to bring her kids back.”
Upon becoming an American citizen this past August (she initially came to the U.S. on a student visa), Massoud started the process of having her children — two daughters, ages 11 and 15, and a 15-year-old son — obtain Palestinian passports to come to the United States and begin their pathway toward citizenship, said Rania Mustafa, executive director of the Clifton, N.J.-based Palestinian American Community Center, who has been acting as Massoud’s translator.
But when war erupted in the Middle East after the violent Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants, Massoud was overcome with terror as she feared every day for the lives of her three children.
“She was in contact with the passport center [in Gaza] until it was bombed by Israel,” said Mustafa. “That’s when she lost hope. She thought there was no way to get her kids out.”
But on Wednesday — the same day as a temporary cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas — Massoud was enroute to Egypt to be reunited with her children. They were being held at the American Embassy in Egypt after being safely transported over the border, said Mustafa.
HOW SHE OBTAINED HELP
Last month, Massoud reached out to the Palestinian American Community Center, and attended a press conference where media reports brought attention to her situation. Upon reading Massoud’s story in the Advance/SILive.com, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer reached out…
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