The border between Gaza and Egypt is one of the hottest spots right now in the Strip. Thousands of people have set their eyes on the area as the exit door to horror, but they are not waiting there with open arms. Egypt is trying to contain the massive wave of foreigners through Rafah to avoid an imbalance in its own state by all possible means: it is not in favor of opening a humanitarian corridor there and has even blocked the passage with stones to prevent an invasion.
Ibrahim al Qarnaoui arrived in Gaza a few days ago to see his family. Now, blindsided by the conflict, he hopes that his Swiss passport will allow him to leave the Palestinian enclave permanently bombed by Israel. However, he has remained blocked. “The Swiss embassy in Israel told us yesterday to come to this border post,” he tells the APF agency. But once on the ground he has encountered reality: »It is not open«.
A United States official has announced an agreement with Egypt and Israel to open the passage for a few hours to let the Americans leave. The others, however, must wait. Qarnaoui, 77, has no intention of returning to his family, who are in the Bureij refugee camp further north, while the Jewish attacks continue. And he has had serious difficulties finding a place to sleep.
No taxis venture on the roads, so it depends on local solidarity. One of the neighbors agreed to take him in for one night. «We all slept on the floor, it was very cold. Then, one of the residents took me to the terminal,” he says. “Half an hour later, we found out that his home had just been bombed,” he adds bitterly.
Stuck on vacation
About thirty people with foreign passports wait near the terminal, which has also been attacked three times. The situation is not new to Qarnaoui. He already experienced something similar a few years ago, when he was on vacation: «I saw the war of 2008, but it was different; “This time it is a genocidal war,” she says. “If I can’t get out, I will return to the family home and we will live or die together,” she concludes.
Another of the citizens waiting in Rafah is Said al Hasi, who is trying to return to Sweden. He arrived three weeks ago in Rafah where his family lives and now he cannot leave. “Our house is east of the city, we have gone west,” an area further away from Israel and its army, he says. “In countries where there is peace” he can use his Swedish passport, but, in Gaza, “a passport is worthless in the face of bombings and war,” he notes.
Rafah, for the moment, remains carefully sealed by the Egyptian side. Cairo maintains that the place cannot serve “only” for foreigners to leave. According to sources cited by the media, no one will be allowed to cross the border until international humanitarian aid, which is building up in the Egyptian Sinai, is allowed into Gaza. “If they drop an atomic bomb on us, at least, we will die faster than drowning under the rubble,” says Hasi.
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