for Palestinians who manage to leave the Gaza Strip, Egypt can only be a step

Many Palestinians are trying to leave the Gaza Strip to take refuge in Egypt. But their situation there is precarious. This is the case of Khaled, who left with his family for Cairo, and who has 45 days to find a new base.

With the threat of the Rafah offensive, more and more Palestinians are seeking to leave Gaza. According to the Palestinian ambassador in Cairo (Egypt), more than 80,000 people have already fled the enclave since the start of the war. But the exit ticket costs a fortune and the status of the Palestinians is then precarious.

With his entire family, Khaled took 24 hours to cross the border, before driving towards Cairo, where he is now staying in an apartment. “Exhausted”, he whispers. Until the last moment, this Médecins du monde employee believed that he was going to get stuck. The first thing he did when he left was buy what is overpriced today in the Gaza Strip. “We all went down to a supermarket,” he says.

“We bought cheese, bread, chocolate, chips, drinks, and we ate like crazy.”

Khaled, Palestinian refugee in Cairo

at franceinfo

To get out, Khaled had to pay almost 40,000 euros to the Egyptians. Most Gazans today are looking for financial support to offer themselves a future elsewhere. “Most don’t want to stay because there is no life there. Even if the war ends tomorrow, there are no schools, no hospitals, there is nothing .”

“The cries against Hamas are increasing”

However, the road does not end there. The status of Palestinians in Egypt is precarious. Khaled has 45 days to find a new home port. “I’m thinking: what’s the next step? Where to go? We don’t have anything legal here in Egypt, unfortunately. They don’t want to consider us refugees.”

What Khaled also says is that Hamas still has control of Rafah, in the Gaza Strip, despite the rise in discontent. “The cries against Hamas are increasing, but it has not yet reached the point of having a revolt against them, because they can torture anyone in the night, enter the tents to beat us. I “I found quite a few people who were physically attacked in the hospital. It’s not yet the time to say that it’s ‘game over’ for Hamas.” Khaled has been preparing his departure since March. He had to borrow money from his family and sold his car.