17,000 Palestinians have left the Gaza Strip this year in search of a better life
The emigration of Gaza youth... the distance closest to death
Umm Mahmoud Hassan Abourjila, whose tracks disappeared in the Aegean Sea.
Emirates today
Young Anas Hajar to help his father provide for a living.
Emirates today
Nasrallah's parents flee forbidden to bury his body.
Emirates today
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He bid farewell to his sick parents, accompanied his wife and child, who had given him years later, and left the besieged Gaza Strip through the only window of life for two and a half million Gazans, crossing the geographical borders all the way to Turkish lands, hoping to find a better life than the one shattered by poverty and division.
The parents of Gazan citizen Nasrallah Abdul Rahman Al-Farra, 48, from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, were waiting for their eldest son’s promise to accompany them after several months, so that they could live a comfortable life with him, but that quickly dissipated without return, before he set foot in the country of dreams. The Rosary, to deprive his wife and child, Adham, on his way to them smuggled on board a Turkish ship, which was making its way in the cover of darkness to Greece.
This painful event was on Friday, the fifth of November, when a boat sank in the Aegean Sea, while 22 young men were on board, including 10 Palestinians from Khan Yunis, who had escaped from the deteriorating living conditions that have hit the flanks of Gaza since the summer of 2007. Seven of them escaped death, while three of them disappeared in the depths of the sea, one of them fled, along with the two young men, Mahmoud Hassan Mahmoud Abu Abourjila, and Anas Ayman Abu Abourjila.
Extended Surgeon
The accident of the sinking of the Turkish ship on the Greek sea border, the wounds of the three victims’ families, who were waiting for good news that their children were able to settle on Greek lands, and that they obtained a source of income that would revive their deteriorating living conditions, brought to mind the sinking of 185 citizens of the Gaza Strip. They were on a ship that sailed from the shores of Alexandria to Italy, whose traces disappeared and contact was cut off, in 2014.
Nasrallah Al-Farra's mother says in a sad voice: "Our life in Gaza is surrounded by oppression and deprivation. We have been deprived of the presence of my son Abu Adham in his house, in search of a source of livelihood and a decent life outside the borders of Gaza, to be deprived of it forever without being able to achieve what he aspired to." The grieving mother said, “My son Nasrallah left Gaza with his small family to escape the poor living conditions and the lack of job opportunities for tens of thousands of young people and residents, so he decided to travel by boat in search of a better life, to secure the future of his only child, after several attempts by him to emigrate before that, But death was waiting for him this time, which tore all our hearts apart from him.”
She points out that her eldest son Nasrallah had his only son (Adham - 12 years old), after years of deprivation, as a result of a micro-fertilization process, adding that "his wife and son were with him in Turkish lands, and they preceded him in their migration to Greece, and they were waiting for him to come by sea, to be reunited." The family escaping from the inferno of poverty to the bosom of death.”
Nasrallah Al-Farra was the first to find his body on the seventh of November, on the Turkish-Greek coast, but his family also denied him farewell, to be buried in Turkish lands, and the pain that inhabited the hearts of his grieving family increased.
As for the family of the young Anas Abourjila, after making several appeals, it was able to receive his body after finding it, to be buried in his hometown, nine days after the shipwreck in the Aegean Sea, so that death and deprivation would be his fate and his family, without achieving the slightest dreams outside The confines of the besieged sector.
Samira Aburajila, the wife of the father of the young man Anas Abu Jalila, told "Emirates Today": "Anas left his home and the Strip, traveling to Turkey 11 months ago, to help his father secure a livelihood for his five brothers and sisters, and to escape poverty, to secure his future and improve the tragic living conditions of life. , but death was waiting for him, if we had known that, we would not have allowed him to travel, but God’s destiny is inevitably overcome.” As for the young man (Mahmoud), who was absent in the depths of the Aegean Sea, his mother deprived her four children, who died during the past years, and did not find A better option than traveling to Europe. Perhaps he would secure the decent life that his brothers had aspired to provide for his family, but her fifth son was kidnapped by death, without a trace of him appearing.
Troubled economic conditions
In the past few years, the Gaza Strip has witnessed a sharp increase in the emigration of citizens, especially young people, to Turkish territory, from which they try to migrate illegally by land or sea to several European countries, including Greece, in order to search for a better life.
According to information from the Palestinian Ministry of the Interior, more than 74,000 Palestinians have left the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing since the beginning of this year, while 57,000 have returned, and about 17,000 have remained outside the Gaza Strip, whether they traveled for the purpose of legal immigration through the crossings, or illegal immigration. Through death boats and smuggling.
In 2019, the official Israeli Broadcasting Corporation published a report on the emigration of Palestinian youths from Gaza, which said at the time that their number, according to Israeli estimates, exceeded 40,000, while Palestinian reports stated that their number exceeded 70,000, from 2014 until the end of last year 2020.
The emigration rates of the population of the Strip, especially the youth, are increasing, in light of the suffering of the population, the deterioration of the economic, political and social conditions. million people.
More than 80% of the population of the Gaza Strip depends on urgent food aid, 53% of families live below the poverty line, and nearly 33% of Gazan families live below the extreme poverty line, while unemployment indicators have risen to 85%, according to the Director of the Public Relations and Information Department. In the Gaza Chamber of Commerce Maher Al-Tabbaa.
Al-Tabbaa says: “Many tragedies have afflicted the residents of the Gaza Strip since 2007, as a result of the imposition of the Israeli siege policy, and the rupture of the Palestinian fabric as a result of the political division between the Gaza Strip and Ramallah. ».
He points out that the high rates of poverty and unemployment, the fragility of economic sectors as a result of wars and Israeli attacks, as well as the scarcity of job opportunities due to the siege and the closure of the main crossings, are all factors that pushed young people to face the risks of death in order to travel outside Gaza, and to search for stability in European countries.
• More than 80% of the residents of the Gaza Strip depend on urgent food aid, 53% of families live below the poverty line, and approximately 33% of Gazan families live below the extreme poverty line, while unemployment indicators have risen to 85%, according to the Director of the Relations Department Public and Media in the Gaza Chamber of Commerce.
• High rates of poverty and unemployment, and the fragility of economic sectors as a result of wars and Israeli attacks, in addition to the scarcity of job opportunities, as a result of the siege and the closure of the main crossings, are all factors that pushed young people to face the risks of death in order to travel outside Gaza, and to search for stability in European countries.
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