‘Can’t sleep’: Trapped British nationals try to flee Israel’s Gaza bombing | Israel-Palestine conflict

Ibrahim Assalia pays a go to to Gaza annually to see his dad and mom.

However this yr, the go to was pressing: His father was recognized with blood most cancers.

So Assalia, his spouse and their six youngsters – all British nationals – left their residence in North London to assist their ailing member of the family obtain remedy in Jordan.

However Israel’s relentless bombing of the Gaza Strip following Hamas’s assault on Israeli soil on October 7 made it unattainable for Assalia’s father to have the ability to depart the blockaded enclave.

He died final week on account of receiving no medical care.

“He handed away on the twenty second of this month – throughout struggle,” Assalia instructed Al Jazeera, talking by cellphone from the northern Gaza metropolis of Jabalia.

When he went to the hospital to determine how one can bury his father, he was instructed to seek out any makeshift graveyard he may and put his physique in, even when other bodies were already there.

Hospitals in the Gaza Strip have been functioning as overflowing morgues, as Israel’s close to month-long bombardment has killed greater than 9000 Palestinians.

“That’s how they bury the lifeless right here,” mentioned Assalia. “Like 5, six, 10 in a single grave.”

Assalia, a lecturer of media research again in London, and a former English information presenter and editor for Palestine TV with the Palestinian Authority from 1998 to 2006, is making an attempt to get his household out of Gaza.

They’re amongst hundreds of foreign nationals and critically wounded Palestinians permitted to go away the strip since Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt opened on Wednesday for the primary time for the reason that struggle broke out.

Assalia acquired a cellphone name from the British Overseas Workplace late on Thursday, letting them know that their names had been on an inventory of individuals authorized to evacuate Gaza.

However Israeli shelling continues to deluge the route between the Rafah border and central Jabalia the place he and his household fled to, after bombing intensified close to their household residence on the outskirts of the town.

“No taxi can take us there, just because Israeli tanks are positioned within the space,” Assalia mentioned.

“We heard that they shelled some civilian automobiles with passengers,” he added, explaining that he known as six taxi corporations on Friday morning who knowledgeable him of the shelling and instructed him it was too harmful to make the hour-long journey alongside Gaza’s most important Salah al-Din freeway.

On Friday, Israel acknowledged that it had bombed a convoy of ambulances heading from Gaza Metropolis to the south, killing 15 individuals, based on Palestinian officers.

Trapped, the Assalia household shelters in a single room with two different households who’re additionally British nationals, all of them surviving on one meal a day of canned meals.

And their state of affairs is just getting extra determined.

Assalia injured his finger after an Israeli air strike shattered a window close to the place he stood. His spouse is operating out of her epilepsy medicine. And his 22-year-old daughter, a medical pupil, has been experiencing irritation on her pores and skin she suspects may very well be as a consequence of Israel’s alleged use of white phosphorus munitions.

Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of using the chemical weapon on civilians in Gaza, which many consultants say can be a violation of international law.

Grateful for visa

Again in the UK, Nasser Alshanti stays anxious about his daughter and her household, however is relieved to listen to that they’ve managed to get out of Gaza.

Yosra Alshanti, her two younger youngsters and her husband Ibrahim Taha, crossed the Palestinian facet of the Rafah border crossing, he mentioned, and at the moment are ready to journey to Egypt’s capital, Cairo, earlier than they board a flight to the UK.

However speaking with Alshanti’s daughter and her household, all British residents aside from Taha, has been troublesome, mentioned the Manchester-based college lecturer, as a consequence of communications blackouts on the strip.

It was Alshanti who managed to textual content his son-in-law Taha via WhatsApp about being on the checklist of individuals permitted to go away Gaza via the Rafah border, a message that lagged for some time earlier than it lastly bought via.

Whereas Yosra and her youngsters may have no problem in getting into the UK, Taha will want a particular clearance as a non-British citizen to have the ability to – however it’s one thing Alshanti persuaded British authorities to permit, he mentioned.

“No method my daughter can depart Gaza … with out her husband,” is what Alshanti instructed British authorities, he instructed Al Jazeera. “She has two youngsters and is pregnant.”

The involved father is not sure what kind of visa Taha will obtain, and has been instructed it may embody all the things from a spousal visa to 1 issued below humanitarian safety.

Alshanti has watched the occasions within the Strip unfold during the last weeks with trepidation, questioning if his daughter and her household, who’ve been residing there for the final seven years, will have the ability to get out safely.

“I can’t clarify my emotions. I couldn’t sleep … I couldn’t focus throughout my lectures. All as a result of my thoughts is completely engaged with what’s taking place in Gaza,” he mentioned.

Alshanti mentioned he’s grateful for the British authorities’s response in making certain his household is protected, and for having added Taha to the evacuations checklist, regardless of listening to nothing from them for the primary 5 days of the battle.

“Every single day after 5 days, I acquired a name from the disaster workforce from London, asking me about my daughter,” he mentioned, including {that a} British border drive workforce has flown from London to Cairo to offer help to evacuating British nationals.

Dispatches from the Rafah border

Salma Alrayyes was checking Fb each probability she may, throughout temporary durations of having access to the web, as soon as she discovered the Rafah border was opening.

That’s the place the Gaza border and crossings authority has been updating their checklist of international nationals permitted to go away every day.

Alrayyes noticed her and her household’s title Thursday at midnight. By 9am the subsequent day, they made their option to Rafah, a 20-minute journey from the place they had been sheltering.

Hours later, Alrayyes, her husband, their three children and her brother-in-law and his household –  all British residents – had been nonetheless ready to cross into Egypt after clearing via the Palestinian facet of the border.

“We’re going to Egypt from time to time we’ll see what we’re going to do,” she instructed Al Jazeera by cellphone from the Rafah border crossing. “However we needed to depart … [we] are afraid of the struggle.”

Alrayyes had been residing within the Strip for the final two years. Her residence in Gaza Metropolis was destroyed as a consequence of Israeli air strikes.

As she and her household flee, her husband’s household who usually are not British nationals are left behind.

“We don’t know what we’re going to do,” Alrayyes mentioned repeatedly with despair, chopping the cellphone name quick as Egyptian border authorities summoned her and her household ahead.