Wafaa Abo Zarifa is a Palestinian Journalist. She was born in Algeria, and moved to Saudi Arabia when her parents were working there. They returned to their home in Gaza when Wafaa was in her teens, and she finished her university studies as a journalist there. Wafaa worked as a freelance journalist in Gaza, reporting on humanitarian stories.
In this interview she described her family home and her daily life in Gaza as life in a war zone, that is sometimes more intense.
In early July 2014, however, one of the deadliest conflicts between Palestinians and Israel in decades erupted in Gaza. Airstrikes and ground bombardment and rocket attacks resulted in thousands of deaths, the vast majority of which were the people of Gaza. At that time Wafaa was reporting for Amnesty international and she describes counting deaths day in day out…knowing that these statistics, were her people. She looks back on one incident that shook her to her core…and the eventual realisation that she had to take a chance on a better life for her family.
This is Wafaa’s story, and her journey to Luxembourg.