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Mohamed Salama, 66, and Nazik Abuhuzaimah, 64, have supplied local stores with their kmaj, a type of rich pita bread sold on the streets of Jerusalem as early as the 17th century.

Salama, originally Egyptian, and Abuhuzaimah, originally Palestinian, met in Doha, Qatar, where they worked as bank managers. They had studied to become accountants. Her grandfather had left Gaza in 1948. The Arab-Israeli War had broken out, during which 13,000 Palestinians were killed and more than 700,000 were forced to leave or flee their homes.

Her family eventually settled in Doha, and she went to study in Egypt, where Salama grew up.

She hadn’t seen Gaza in decades.

Salama and Abuhuzaimah and their three children got green cards to come to America in 2006 and moved to Illinois. To support their family, they began cooking for Arab weddings and local students who missed home-cooked meals. Abuhuzaimah baked Palestinian desserts like basbosa and baklava. For weddings, she would make an entire lamb.

These celebrations gave her a feeling of connection to the home she left as a young child.

Their family got American citizenship in 2010. They dressed up in their finest for the swearing in ceremony in O’Fallon, Illinois. Salama wore a suit. Their children were thriving in their new country. Their daughter became a radiology tech, one son is a police officer in Waterloo and the other is in school to become a pilot.

Abuhuzaimah refused to retire. She loved cooking, especially for the young students far from home who told them her food tasted like their moms’. Her husband had retired after a major surgery to remove a tumor. He relies on a walker now.

A cousin who lived in Norway convinced her it was safe for them to come to his daughter’s wedding, which would be held in Gaza. The adult Salama children cautioned their parents that the trip might be too difficult for their father. ������Ƶ worried if it would be safe.

But Abuhuzaimah felt the tug of seeing relatives she hadn’t seen in more than 40 years. Some cousins had never even met her husband. After cooking and baking for so many weddings, would she finally have a chance to attend one of her own relatives?

Would she get to see her childhood home once more in her lifetime?

They decided it was safe enough for a short visit. They left on Oct. 3 for Cairo, Egypt. They rode six hours to the border and entered Gaza. Abuhuzaimah went straight to her uncles’ homes to see her eldest living relatives.

������Ƶ were overjoyed to see her.

On Friday, her cousin ordered all the desserts that would be distributed to guests at the wedding the next day.

On Saturday, Hamas attacked Israel.

Instead of a wedding, there was a siege in Gaza.

The house next door to where they were staying was bombed. In the first six days of the war, Israel has dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza — nearly matching the number America dropped on Afghanistan in a year after the attacks on 9/11.

Salama’s children called the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem to try to get their parents out of the active war zone. They told them to have their parents go back to the border and try to cross back into Egypt.

The U.S. State Department said earlier this week that about 500 to 600 American citizens are in Gaza. Salama and Abuhuzaimah immediately headed to the border. They have tried every day to leave, but the border remains shut.

They are trapped. There is still no water, no electricity, no fuel.

“There is nowhere for them to hide,” said their son, Abdulla Salama, of St. Louis. Israeli forces are preparing for a massive land offensive. An evacuation order spans an area where more than a million Gazans live. The bombing is continuous.

Their children, trying to find ways to stay in contact with them, are terrified.

Their youngest grandchild, who is 2 and frequently stayed with his grandparents in Fairview Heights, has been watching Al Jazeera reports on the war, trying to catch a glimpse of his grandparents. His father worries that his toddler has seen videos of dead children and anguished parents on television.

But he can’t turn off his only source of news for what might be happening to his own parents.

Salama and Abuhuzaimah had a return flight to America booked for Oct. 16.

They are still waiting at the border to find a way home.