Highlights: Since the start of the war in Gaza, more than 200 people, French nationals, Palestinian agents of French institutions and their dependents, have been evacuated from the Palestinian enclave. Dozens of others are still there and waiting to leave the war zone via neighboring Egypt. The French consulate in Jerusalem has set up a crisis unit. For four months, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, this unit has been watching over them remotely. The calls we receive are difficult. These are people who are in trying situations. They are in an extremely degraded psychological, health and security state.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, more than 200 people, French nationals, Palestinian agents of French institutions and their dependents, have been evacuated from the Palestinian enclave.…

Reporting

War in Gaza: the crisis unit of the French consulate in Jerusalem has been on deck for four months

Since the start of the war in Gaza, more than 200 people, French nationals, Palestinian agents of French institutions and their dependents, have been evacuated from the Palestinian enclave. Dozens of others are still there and waiting to leave the war zone via neighboring Egypt. The French consulate in Jerusalem has set up a crisis unit. For four months, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, this unit has been watching over them remotely. Objective: prepare and facilitate their departure for France.

Listen - 01:26

The crisis unit of the French consulate in Jerusalem, February 16, 2024. © Sami Boukhelifa/RFI

By: RFI Follow

With our correspondent in Jerusalem,

Sami Boukhelifa

François Tiger is director of the French Institute in Gaza. From Jerusalem, he tried in vain to contact Amal, in the Palestinian enclave. “

Amal,”

he explains,

“is someone we’ve followed since the beginning. We know her well, since she is a professor at the French Institute.

The people being monitored also have the possibility of contacting the crisis unit. “

The calls we receive are difficult. These are people who are in trying situations. They are in an extremely degraded psychological, health and security state. And that is the daily life of the people of Gaza today.

Also read: Is Egypt preparing to welcome refugees from Gaza in the event of an offensive against Rafah?

Long and difficult discussions

Added to this are the communications difficulties in the enclave. “

There have been several communications outages in the Gaza Strip, which sometimes lasted several days, since the start of the war,”

says Hermine Carde, who also works in the crisis unit.

And each time, it is a fairly intense moment, a moment of stress for the people being monitored. Since they generally don't know if it's due to a military operation taking place near them, or if it's a widespread outage throughout the Gaza Strip.

On one of the walls, the map of Gaza on which is pinned the location of all the people followed, while awaiting their evacuation. “

Concretely, for the exit from Gaza,”

says Quentin Lopinot, the deputy consul-general,

“we must obtain the agreement of all the parties present. That is to say Israeli and Egyptian. This is the subject of discussions which are long and difficult

.” But which, when they succeed, allow the departure, as at the beginning of this week, of 42 people.

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War in Gaza: the crisis unit of the French consulate in Jerusalem has been on deck for four months

War in Gaza: the crisis unit of the French consulate in Jerusalem has been on deck for four months

Long and difficult discussions

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