His aunt Eleen Abuzannad told north Cyprus news website Bugun Kibris that her older sister’s house was hit while her nephew, named Abdullah, was inside.

“Abdullah was in the prime of his life. He lost his dreams. Now he is trying to survive by searching for a prosthetic leg,” she said.

She added that her brother Wisam’s son Yusuf had also been injured in a separate strike.

“Wisam’s son Yusuf was targeted by a reconnaissance missile while gathering firewood to help his mother prepare a meal. Although the drone recognised him as a civilian and told him to leave the area, he was betrayed in an instant, and he was fired upon, causing severe burns to both legs, lacerations to his chest, head, and abdomen, and internal bleeding,” she said.

She also said that children in Gaza are being denied access to education as a result of the ongoing Israeli military offensive in the strip.

“The harsh reality is unforgiving to innocent children. They need urgent care, evacuation from Gaza, and treatment. They also need help to complete their school and university education,” she said.

She pointed out that one family member of hers has not been able to take his high school exams for two years, while a younger family member has not been able to go to school for two years.

“Wisam is desperately trying to teach the children basic skills like reading, writing, and maths, all while facing constant missile attacks and danger. We are living in a never-ending cycle of suffering and desperately need help to restore the future and hope our children deserve,” she said.

Many Turkish Cypriots in Palestine are the descendants of women who were married off to men in British Palestine in the early part of the 20th century, with this practice continuing until the 1950s.

Author Neriman Cahit wrote in 2014 that as many as 4,000 Turkish Cypriot women were sent to Palestine to be married to Arab men.

At the outset of the current conflict in Gaza in 2023, Turkey’s then deputy foreign minister and current permanent representative at the United Nations Ahmet Yildiz said that there were 104 Turkish Cypriots inside Gaza waiting to be evacuated to Turkey.

At the same time, the north’s ‘foreign ministry’ had said that 150 Turkish Cypriots and their relatives had been successfully evacuated from Israel and Palestine within 12 days of the start of the conflict on October 7, 2023.