A Family’s Escape From Rafah, Days Before the Israeli Offensive

We are heading to Rafah crossing. It’s like mixed feelings of fear and anxiety — happiness at the same time. It requires high registration fees in order to get from Rafah to Egypt. And we didn’t have that sum of money to get the rest of the family out. I had this mental fight between like, staying here along with my family or securing my wife and son. It was a very difficult decision. When I left Rafah, the condition on the ground was very bad. Sewage in the streets. People are living in tents. People were scattered all over Rafah searching for food. I am currently staying at a place in New Cairo. I feel some kind of guilt because I am living now, in a good apartment and eating good food, and the other family members are enduring this suffering. They don’t have food. They don’t have life conditions that fits for normal human beings. And when I’ve seen like the videos from my brother, while he’s like filling water from a mosque and he’s trying to carry them and go back to put them at home, it was actually heartbreaking to see this footage. What makes it worse, actually, it’s that there is nothing you can do as the Rafah crossing is now blocked. I’m still hoping that Rafah crossing will be opened one more time, that our families will be able to leave Gaza and to be safe out of it, to see them one more time.