Former UT Arabic instructor, Amjad Shabat, along with her husband and 2-year-old daughter, was evacuated from the Gaza Strip to Cairo on March 15.

Shabat and her family are in good health and have found shelter in Cairo, Shabat’s former student, Aaron Burroughs, said in an email.

Burroughs raised $19,600 from crowdfunding alongside Nahed Elrayes, a development manager at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, who created a website for the crowdfunding efforts. Burroughs originally planned to evacuate Shabat through Ya Hala, a company with links to the Egyptian government that coordinates evacuations.

Burroughs said working with Ya Hala was “an extremely convoluted and time-consuming process,” since they charge evacuation fees up to $5,000. Many Palestinians going through Ya Hala often pay another several thousand dollars in bribe money to receive priority due to the influx of demand for the service, according to an article from NPR. 

Before they finished coordinating with Ya Hala, Shabat and her family were put on a free evacuation list after months of “pro-bono legal advocacy” from UNRWA. The funds will now go towards evacuating Shabat’s mother and sister, who are still in Gaza, through Ya Hala. Shabat will use any extra funds for essentials for her and her family in Cairo. 

Shabat came to UT from Gaza as a Fulbright Scholar in 2016, where she was a language partner in the Arabic department. In Gaza, she worked for the UNRWA as a freelance content creator, documenting the ongoing violence in the strip. After an Israeli airstrike destroyed her home in northern Gaza in late October, she and her family went to Rafah, where they remained until they evacuated.

“Amjad sends her sincerest thanks to everyone who donated and supported,” Burroughs said. “Many people helped make this possible and made themselves available to help at the drop of a hat. It really was a collective effort.”