Ibrahim al-Qarnaoui arrived in Gaza a few days ago to see his family. Now, caught off guard by the conflict, he hopes his Swiss passport will help him leave the Palestinian territory under constant bombardment by Israel while he remains blocked at Rafah, the border crossing with Egypt.
“The Swiss embassy in Israel told us yesterday to come to the Rafah border post,” the only point of exit from Gaza not under Israeli control, he told AFP.
A US official announced an agreement between Egypt and Israel to open the border crossing for a few hours so US citizens could leave. The other foreigners and nationals would have to wait.
“The border post is not open,” said Qarnaoui, who prefers not to return to his family’s home in the Bureij refugee camp further north while Israeli bombardments continue.
There are no taxis on the roads of Palestinian territory, so this 77-year-old man had to find a local resident willing to give him shelter for the night.
“Die Together”
“We all slept on the floor, it was very cold. This morning one of the residents took me to the terminal,” he says. “Half an hour later we heard that his house had been bombed,” he reveals.
About 30 people with foreign passports wait near the terminal, which has been bombed three times since the start of the offensive launched by Israel in response to an attack by militiamen from the Islamist movement Hamas that killed more than 1,400 people.
It is not the first time that Qarnaoui has been surprised by a war in Gaza during his holiday in Switzerland. “I saw the 2008 war, but it was different. This time it is a genocidal war,” he guarantees, at a time when Israel threatens to invade the Gaza Strip, an area of 632 km² and almost 2.4 million inhabitants.
“If I cannot leave, I will return to my family’s home. We will live or die together,” Qarnaoui assures.
Said al-Hasi, in turn, is trying to return to Sweden, where he left three weeks ago to visit his family in Rafah. “Our house is in the east of the city and we fled to the west,” to an area further away from Israel and its army, he told AFP.
Without food
“In countries where there is peace” you can use your Swedish passport, but in Gaza “a passport is not valid because of the bombings and the war,” he admits.
For the time being, Rafah remains carefully closed on the Egyptian side. Cairo claims the location cannot be used ‘only’ for the departure of foreigners.
According to sources cited by the media, no one will be able to cross the border until international humanitarian aid is allowed to enter Gaza, which is accumulating in Egypt’s Sinai. “If they drop an atomic bomb, at least we will die faster than suffocate under the rubble,” Hasi said, resigning.
Source: DN
