After harrowing Gaza war experience, fear, anxiety, and trauma follow Waxahachie man home

Hesham Kaoud's vacation in Gaza was supposed to be one of a kind; his first international trip with his brother and nephew from California.

“We’ve never been together in one time. Visit our homeland, visit our brother, my sisters—two sisters there and nephews and kids. To enjoy it, to have fun," he said.

And they did-- starting with a warm welcome from his family with balloons and music.

“We are happy, and they are happy, too, to meet us [at] one time," Kaoud recalled, remembering how all his brothers started crying after seeing each other again.

But trips to grape farms and cafes on the beach ended abruptly. One morning, they all woke up to a war.

“Start bombing everywhere, hitting everywhere," Kaoud said.

He said no one in his family knew about Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7 until they started seeing the war around them.

“One day passed, two days passed, and it gets worse and worse and worse," he said.

Within a week, it became difficult to find food, with one family member standing in line from 3:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. for one bag of bread.

As his fellow Americans in Israel got on flights back home in the first couple weeks of the war, Kaoud said he felt abandoned.

He said the United States embassy never called him, only emails saying they were working on his case. He was told to move closer to the Rafah border with Egypt, so they could be ready if and when the time came to evacuate.

Kaoud's nephew, also a U.S. citizen, didn't want to leave their Gaza family behind.

“He start[ed] crying, crying bad. Everybody start[ed] crying," Kaoud said.

He said the Gazans around them tried to comfort and reassure them.

“The neighbors came and kiss[ed] us and they said, ‘God bless you guys, you guys are going to be safe.’ And they’re worried about us. Not we worry about them, they worry about us," Kaoud said. “We [were] scared, me and my brothers, more than them. It made us like, 'Look how they are. How they are strong.'”

He was among tens of thousands who evacuated northern Gaza to the south.

“You see a lot of people, they carry the mattress, the kids, walking—no cars," he said. “What I saw there, you know, it’s too much; bodies in the street, kids dying. It's too much."

Minutes after he arrived in the south, he found out that his brother's home, which they had just evacuated from in the north, was bombed.

His sister has lost four of her grandkids in this war. His wife, Haifa, has lost a cousin to the bombing.

Kaoud, himself, came close to bombs-- and death-- several times.

Around 5:00 a.m. one morning, he said he had just offered his morning prayer and was drinking coffee.

“BOOM, from the house next to us. The whole building [was] like moving," Kaoud said. "The whole building move[d], like it's dancing."

Another time, he said a bomb hit when he was at the border.

“The whole building shake and the glass everywhere," he said.

"We’re scared [for] the night to come. We don’t want the night to come... We don’t know what’s going to happen. We don’t sleep," Kaoud said.

Many times, Kaoud said, he repeated his testimony of faith, believing it would be his last.

"I'm not going to make it," Kaoud remembered thinking.

His wife, Haifa, back home, clinging to her phone for a text letting her know her husband is still alive.

“Every time thinking that I’m going to lose him and I will continue the life without him, it was really very—very hard for me," his wife, Haifa, said.

From home in North Texas, she was trying desperately to get her husband out, contacting elected officials and embassies.

After many attempts, Kaoud was finally on the list to cross the Gaza border into Egypt, but his brother and nephew were not.

“He told me, ‘Brother, just leave.’ If something happens to us, we’ll die. Just leave," Kaoud recalled. "And you start hugging each other, crying, you know, don’t sleep all night.”

He was anxious to finally see his loved ones in North Texas, who were waiting for him with signs and bated breath at DFW International.

"I’m excited to see them, to hug them, my kids, my wife, my brother, my friend," he said.

His brother and nephew also eventually made it back home to California. But they are all still traumatized by the horrors of war.

"It’s not like before. Even I’m home but still, you know, like everything, my brain... I’m back home with my family [in Gaza]," he said.

He constantly watches the news for the latest war developments, praying his family gets enough internet signal daily to inform him if they're alive.

He also has physical side effects: A constant headache, trouble sleeping, and feeling jumpy.

"Now, when I hear the airplane, I come outside or I look out the window... I [get] scared. When my daughter, she scream[s], or anyone hit[s] the door, I jump," Kaoud said.

Kaoud and his wife aren't sure life will ever be the same.

"I think life will not be like before, anymore," said Haifa. "I don't think... I'm going to be back to normal like I was before," Kaoud said.

But for now, they're taking it one day at a time, grateful for Hesham's safety, and praying for peace for their families-- and everyone else's.

"We're praying for them to get a ceasefire," Haifa said.

"Peace... for everybody," Kaoud said.