Amid talk of encouraging Palestinians to emigrate from the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority announced an easing of restrictions on issuing passports to residents. "Those interested in submitting an application for issuing or renewing a passport may apply to the Ministry of the Interior in Ramallah," it said.
Gaza publishes footage of destruction across Gaza (26.12.2023) // Arab networks
The announcement provoked mixed reactions. Some Palestinians said they were "afraid that the war in Gaza will provide an excuse for Israel to force Gaza residents to emigrate," and accused that "the PA's announcement is consistent with Israel's expulsion plan."
Other residents, however, welcomed the initiative, saying it was intended to help those whose documents were lost during the war or whose passports had expired. "There are also wounded and sick people who had to leave to receive medical treatment outside Gaza, and did so with a regular ID card because they couldn't find the papers and passport," one resident explained.
According to the testimony of a resident of Gaza, even those who want to leave Gaza today through Rafah Crossing cannot really do so because of the high costs. According to him, a person who wishes to travel outside Gaza is required to pay a bribe of a huge sum of about 20,100 shekels. "This sum goes to Egypt and to entities whose only job is to coordinate the exit of that person from the crossing," he says. "A family of five who wants to move will have to pay <>,<> shekels, who has that money? It's impossible. This is what the merchants of war do. And in any case, those who can leave now are only those who have Egyptian or foreign citizenship, diplomats and patients perhaps."
The results of the attack on the compound in the Jabaliya refugee camp. "Collapsed into a compound of tunnels", Photo: AP
The phenomenon of emigration from Gaza developed even before October 7, and it is estimated that tens of thousands of Palestinians, mostly young people, have left the Gaza Strip in recent years, due to Hamas terror and the economic-social situation. According to residents, the war has strengthened the desire of parts of the public in Gaza to go outside. "People are very tired, and can't take it anymore. It feels like no one can protect you. There is severe uncertainty. A person says to himself, if I stay in Gaza, maybe I'll die at any moment," a Palestinian displaced man in Rafah told Israel Hayom.
"People who have lost everything they have achieved in their lives want to get out of Gaza. A person who has someone in his family dies, lost his house, his property and his car are gone, and he doesn't have a job – that's a very difficult feeling. It's no longer just a matter of going looking for another future and forgetting about everything. It has to do with the daily things that every person needs, and they don't have them now in Gaza – water, electricity, shower, food, clean air. If I had the chance, I would also go out with my family, but they also don't let us and have to pay crazy sums," he says.
The new refugee camp in southern Gaza, photo: Reuters
However, he explains that if there is a quick decision to rehabilitate the Gaza Strip, there will be residents who prefer to stay. "It's everyone's decision. I assume that those who have lost and suffered more will be more eager to leave Gaza, but not everyone is capable of doing so – mentally and personally. And in general, it's hard for older people."
"If they start talking about rehabilitation, it can make people think about staying here, but on the other hand there is also a thought that says: What, are we going to wait 10 years now until everything is rebuilt, and in the meantime we will live in tent camps and plastic structures?" Video testimonies posted on social media showed Gaza residents sitting on the ruins of their homes after losing all their belongings, stressing that they would "rebuild their homes and not leave Gaza."
Documentation of the destruction following IDF bombings in the Gaza Strip, photo: Arab networks
Another resident who emigrated from Gaza several years ago said that his family wanted to join him, and that he was handling the bureaucratic procedures that would make it possible. "All of Gaza wants to emigrate from Gaza. There is no future in Gaza. My family now also want to go out. They tell me: We don't want to die in Gaza. There is no respect for the dead and there is not even a grave. People's bodies are strewn in the street. Even before the war, they weren't happy with the situation, but at least there was a kind of life. Now there is nothing," he told Israel Hayom.
The issue of immigration is very sensitive on the Palestinian side. Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement on Monday that he condemned and rejected "any dubious attempt to authorize former British Prime Minister Tony Blair or others to work on the emigration of residents from the Gaza Strip."
"Persona non grata". Tony Blair, Cinematography: Gideon Markowitz
"We demand that Britain and the UN not allow this move, which contravenes international law and constitutes intervention that serves only Israel's interests, while harming the Palestinian people and their rights. Tony Blair is persona non grata with us, and he seems to be working to complete the Balfour Declaration that brought disaster to the Palestinian people." Blair, for his part, denied in a conversation with the Al-Quds newspaper that he was working to absorb Palestinian refugees in countries around the world.
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