Wafa Elsaka is one of many Americans stuck overseas ever since October 7th and the chaos erupted between Israel and Hamas. Her son spoke out on the missing of his mother, “There are unimaginable experiences going on over there.” I understand how he is responding because he is simply confused as to why this is happening to his mother. The article remarks that he told the Tallahassee Democrat, part of the USA TODAY Network, on Tuesday “What would you tell your mom if she was stuck in a war zone with nothing? There are no words.” This whole situation is sicking to read about. I could not even imagine what it would be like to go through something like this. It is said that there are estimated to be around 200 people who were taken hostage and more than 1,200 Israelis have been killed during the surprise attack on Hamas. Wafa Elsaka described in a 2018 Tallahassee Democrat story that she used art to help students process emotions in the aftermath of Category 4 Hurricane Michael. Elsaka told times, “What are they going to do with people? I want these questions answered so we know. They want to throw us to the sea, Go ahead, do it, don’t keep us in pain.”

This news is something that was interesting for me to read about. I knew about the war that is happening in Gaza, but I was not aware of how many hostages are being held captive by this war as well. It is so disheartening to hear about topics like this because it something that I could never imagine going through. My heart goes out to the Elsaka family. This article gave insight as to what is going on in Gaza regarding a former art teacher from Florida.