Consider This from NPR - An American Citizen Managed To Leave Gaza, But The Decision Was Not Easy

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

Since the Rafah border opened between Egypt and Gaza opened last week, it has been flooded with people hoping to leave. With food, water and electricity in short supply, thousands of people in Gaza are hoping for a chance to flee to Egypt. But so far, only a trickle of people have been allowed to pass through, a few hundred at a time. NPR's Mary Louis Kelly is reporting from Tel Aviv, and spoke with an American citizen who managed to make it out of Gaza.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Calls for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas are growing, with demonstrations in Washington, D.C., New York, France, and the U.K. over the weekend. Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected proposals for a ceasefire or a humanitarian pause, a break in the war to aid civilians in Gaza. They are very, very worried that Hamas will exploit anything that is happening on the ground to the benefit of Hamas. Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Ivo Dalder spoke to NPR about Israel's refusal. It's one of the reasons it's been so hard to get humanitarian assistance in. Israel doesn't want any fuel because they fear that fuel that might be meant for generators at hospitals will actually be diverted to Hamas to allow it to fight. The Ministry of Health in Gaza has reported more than 10,000 people killed

since October 7th when Israel retaliated after an attack by Hamas. With no end to the war in sight and with food, water, and electricity in short supply, thousands of people in Gaza are hoping for a chance to flee into Egypt through the border crossing at Rafah. Consider this. Since the Rafah border opened up last week, it has been flooded with people hoping to leave. Coming up, we'll hear from someone who did. From NPR, I'm Juana Summers. It's Monday, November 6th.

It's Consider This from NPR. Since the Rafah border between Gaza and Egypt opened last week, only a trickle of people have been allowed to pass through, a few hundred at a time. My colleague Mary Louise Kelly is in Tel Aviv and brought us this story of an American citizen who managed to make it out of Gaza. Not enough journalists on the ground and frequent phone and internet blackouts have meant it's been hard to get a clear picture of what life is like for people in Gaza. That picture is becoming a little more clear now that some foreign nationals have been allowed to cross from Gaza into Egypt. One of them is 65-year-old Qasem Ali. From Gaza, I grew up in the village called Beit Hanoun, which is now almost wiped out.

Qasem is a journalist, studied in America. In 1997, he got U.S. citizenship. He is also a citizen of Malta. Over a Zoom call, he told me he was visiting his mother. She's about 90 years old. In northern Gaza, two miles or so from the border with Israel, when on October 7th, Hamas insurgents crossed the border into Israel, killing more than 1,400 people, taking more than 200 others hostage. The morning the war began, Qasem was up on the rooftop garden of his family home. You know, I love gardening, so I have a nice garden roof. And, you know, I wake up, I hear

the missiles going, you know. The missiles, yeah. Former journalist, I pick up the mobile phone and started filming. That video shows a beautiful, lush garden full of plants and birds chirping. A stunning sunrise. And then... Explosions, one after another. They were close. So I figured out it would be serious. So I decided to take a shower before Israelis. It's crazy, but that's the reality, you know. So I took a shower quickly because I don't want to be dying while I'm naked, you know.

So I collect my handbag after I shower, pick up my mother, the old mother, and went to Gaza. They fled to Gaza City, to his sister's apartment. Then, you know, like the bombardment went after us. The missiles followed them. So they fled again. I asked him, what day was that? You don't know days, my friend.

You don't know. It is Monday or Friday or all the days is the same. So if you ask me now, you know, after I left, what's the date? I don't know. That's the life of war, especially this war. I have been covering all the wars in Gaza, but this is different. This is not just a war. This is more than a war. This is more than a war. But despite all this, despite the violence, despite not knowing what day it is, despite being a U.S. citizen, Qasem told me he didn't think about trying to leave. Not at first. I want to stay with my sister and my mother. But then I managed to talk to my daughter. She's 13 years old, Nadia.

His 13-year-old daughter, Nadia. She lives in Canada. And I couldn't, you know, die without seeing her. So then I decided to leave. He didn't hear anything from the American government, even after he registered as a citizen trying to leave. But it was his American passport that got him out. No, no, the American government, even after he registered as a citizen trying to leave. But it was his American passport that got him out. No, no, the American passport.

Through the Rafah crossing into Egypt this past Friday. He says then they were all put on a bus for hours, lots of checkpoints, searches, until eventually he got to Cairo Saturday morning and was put up in a hotel. The only thing I want to do is just have a shower for 26 days. You don't even wash your face or brush your teeth and in the same clothes. He finally took a shower, his first since that morning the war began at his family home in northern Gaza 26 days earlier. So you're speaking to us now from Cairo.

Yes. But you can't stay there. You're going to have to move on to Malta, right? I have to leave tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning. Because they give us 72 hours. I don't understand why you have to leave. So I decide to go to Malta and to spend some time there

and to think what I'm going to do after I feel I'm recovered. Yeah. So where is your mother now? Where is your sister? Where's your family? My mother and my sister and my niece and nephew, still they are in Gaza. They refuse to leave. They decide if we're going to die, let's die in our house. Of course, this is why I'm not happy leaving, because I'm worried about my mother. She raised us, seven kids, by herself, get the best education. So I love my mother. And now I'm leaving her. I'm so sorry.

Yeah. Then, you know, people thinking, you know, I'm happy to leave. No. Usually I travel a lot in my life out of Gaza. And always I am happy to get out of Gaza. Even I love Gaza and always come back to it. But the feeling that you are free after you cross Rafah, I feel like I'm free.

But this time I didn't feel I'm free because still part of me is telling them. You're saying you usually feel free when you leave Gaza. You don't now, and that's because your family's there? Not at all. I'm telling you frankly, this is how I feel. This time, I'm feeling sad and angry. You said you feel angry now.

At who? Who do you blame for what's happening to your home, to your family? All, Israelis and Americans. And really, I'm angry at Mr. Biden. Even though the U.S. got you to safety? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not at all. Take me to safety? No, no, no, not at all. When they're helping destruction of your own people, I think American government, even with this situation, they were cheap.

When they put us in the hotel and they tell us you have to leave in 72 hours, if you want to go to the States or you have to organize the ticket, what? What? This is American government which is giving Israel $14 billion and they are not capable of taking charters for their own citizens to the United States and told me I have to be thankful for the American government? Why? Their duty to protect and to help their own citizens. No, I'm not happy at all. And I'm not happy the way they behave. As for what's next, Qasem wants to see Nadia,

his daughter in Canada, and his other kids, but not right away. I need not to go now because I need to recover. He says he needs time, psychologically and physically. He says he wants to protect his kids, to protect Nadia from what he's experienced. You know, it's not talk to her about misery and war and all of these things happening to everybody in Gaza. He doesn't want to bring the war to her. He just witnessed so many kids in Gaza who have no choice but to stay and live through it.

That was my co-host Mary Louise Kelly talking with Qasem Ali, an American citizen from Gaza who was allowed to leave late last week. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers.