Orphaned by war in Gaza, Palestinian siblings reunite with their sister in Israel

NAZARETH, Israel (AP) — The last time Mais al-Gharam saw her seven siblings was in the Gaza Strip two months before the war . That was before she left the Palestinian territory to go live in Israel and before an Israeli airstrike on the family’s home killed her parents and younger brother.

But on this day, she waited hopefully outside Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing , scanning for a glimpse of her surviving brothers and sisters as they made their way through the gates and out of Gaza.

“We never stopped being a family,” said Mais, who is 23 and the eldest of eight siblings born to a father from Gaza and a mother who was a Palestinian citizen of Israel. “But every day I wondered whether I’d see them again.”

The family finally reunited this month following a yearslong effort by Mais and a team of lawyers to get her brothers and sisters out. They met outside the border crossing and then drove together to the city of Nazareth, where their mother’s extended family showered the siblings with hugs and homemade food.

The reunion carried joy, grief and a quiet disbelief: Despite the odds, Mais had secured Israeli passports for her Gaza-born siblings, ages 8 to 22, and arranged for…