The mother of a sailor in the US Navy was reportedly evacuated from Gaza in a joint effort by US officials, American military veterans, and the Israel Defense Forces.
Ahlam Firwana, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday night, crossed the war-torn territory, from Gaza City in the north to the Kerem Shalom Border Crossing in the south, over the course of 19 hours last month. She is now in Jordan.
Firwana is one of hundreds of dual nationals to have been evacuated from Gaza over the course of the two-year war, and a rare case since US President Donald Trump suspended visitor visas from Gaza in August. Thousands of sick Palestinians and their caregivers have also been evacuated with Israeli coordination.
Firwana’s son, Younis, who gained US citizenship via his military service, has been trying to get his family out of northern Gaza for a year and a half. An online fundraising appeal posted by his wife, Amanda Hancock, in April 2024, said the family’s home in the area had been destroyed, and that 19 of his relatives were living in a house with 50 people.
“Now they’re eating birdseed to survive because there’s hardly any food left in North Gaza,” she wrote at the time. “They haven’t seen any fruit or vegetables for months. It’s dangerous for them to go outside for very long because it’s a free-fire zone where drones kill people without warning. There are dead bodies and the smell of death everywhere.”
The Post reported that Firwana received US approval for his mother to enter the US but couldn’t find a way to renew her passport or get her out of Gaza. A group of US military veterans, the Special Operations Association of America, which, according to the Post, has helped get more than 1,000 people out of Gaza, agreed to help and put together a team of people to coordinate the evacuation.
One of those involved was Steve Gabavics, who served as a colonel in the US Army and was the chief of staff of the US Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority from 2001 to 2004. He said he spoke with contacts in Israel, including in the IDF, Shin Bet and Mossad, to ensure a “security buffer” around Firwana and to ensure her location wasn’t targeted in a strike.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, as well as the White House and US State Department, did not respond to requests for comment, the Post said.
The veterans’ group also reportedly enlisted the help of Morgan Ortagus, the White House deputy special envoy to the Middle East, who connected them with the US embassy in Amman, Jordan. Jordan obtained approval for Firwana to enter the country.
“The team at Embassy Jordan went above and beyond to help the mother of an American service member to get safely out of Gaza,” an unnamed US official told the Post. “This is an example of the heroic work our Foreign Service officers perform around the world every day.”
Initially, the veterans’ group donated $10,000 to hire transportation for Firwana, but Israel’s order for all civilians to evacuate Gaza City ahead of the IDF’s major offensive there complicated that plan. Instead, another of Firwana’s sons obtained a vehicle, the Post reported, and drove her. Because roadways were clogged, she finished the journey’s last nine miles on foot.
She is now in Jordan awaiting visa approval. Her son Younis is grateful she is safe, telling the Post, “That means a lot, that these guys care about my family.”
But he also said that he hoped for a greater American effort to evacuate civilians.
“The US,” he said, according to the Post, “should be doing more than this.”