Egyptian border officials are charging Palestinians thousands of dollars to escape death in Gaza.
On February 19, I am going to turn 23. I’m anxious that the day will come and the war will still be ongoing, but then again, I’m not entirely sure I will live long enough to see it.
Before the Israeli war on Gaza, I lived a peaceful life, going every day to Al-Aqsa University in pursuit of my studies. My school has now been bombed by the Israeli military even though it was full of displaced Palestinians from northern Gaza. The bombing campaign killed a number of the displaced, turning the place I used to study, laugh, and feel joy into a horror movie.
My friend and classmate, Nadia Abd El-Latif, was killed during the Israeli onslaught due to a direct Israeli airstrike on her house. The same thing happened to other friends and colleagues — Mahmoud Al-Naouq, Yousef Dawwas, and Muhammad Hammo.
My teacher, Refaat Alareer, was killed in the same way, as was my cousin’s husband, along with her seven-year-old son. All of these deaths have left me drained. After over a hundred days, Israel’s war is still ongoing, and my soul feels worn.
These 115 days make up 2,760 hours spent living with acute fear and anxiety, with no idea whether we’ll be among the survivors or not. But since the bombing began in October, I have been trying — in vain — to think of a way out of Gaza.
Just two months before the war, I had been granted an Erasmus scholarship and was in Spain. Unfortunately, my fate was to return and experience this inhumane genocide. If I were still in Spain, I wonder how my heart would feel. My family would definitely be here in Gaza, except for my sister Rawan, who traveled abroad a week before I did, and has been in Algeria since last January pursuing her master’s degree in international law.
During the beginning of the war, a friend of mine helped me to file a visa application to Qatar. She was hoping that Qatar would grant me a visa, which would make leaving Gaza a bit easier. She promised to host me in her house until the end of the war. Hesitantly, I agreed, reluctant to leave my family in such dire conditions, but the point was moot, as Qatar rejected my visa. I was very disappointed, expecting Qatar to agree since it is an Arab country with strong relations with Palestine.
After the rejection, I started to look for another way to escape Gaza, especially when the Israeli army launched its ground invasion of Gaza. I witnessed the unbearably cruel treatment of Palestinian civilians by Israeli soldiers, and I saw the outside world’s cold reaction.
