They came in search of a better life and got stuck in successive sieges and wars
Syrian refugees in Gaza 10 years ago dreamed of leaving
Lina Hassoun and her son Nawras dream of leaving.
AFP
Anas Katerji is struggling for a better life.
AFP
Syrian refugee and Chef Warf Qassem preparing a meal to be shown on his YouTube channel from Gaza.
AFP
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Ten years after he left Syria to escape the war and death to the Gaza Strip, Imad Al-Hasso feels today that he is stuck in the impoverished and besieged “Gaza prison”, but he does not have the identification papers that would enable him to leave.
Imad and his wife arrived in the Gaza Strip through underground tunnels between the Strip and Egypt, before the Egyptian army closed them in 2013. About 40 Syrian families who fled to the Gaza Strip at the beginning of the conflict are suffering the same situation.
Al-Hasso, who works as a tile and ceramic installer, lives with his wife and children who were born in the Strip, in a small house he rented in a narrow alley in the Rafah refugee camp near the Egyptian border, but without a kitchen or furniture.
"I came here to make Gaza a refuge, perhaps we will find a better life (...), but I was surprised that the situation in Gaza is worse than in Syria," he says.
Life is hard, war after war.
The armed factions in the Gaza Strip and Israel have fought four wars since 2008, the last of which was a bloody escalation last May, during which 260 Palestinians, including 66 children, were killed, and fighters on the Palestinian side, and 12 people, including a child and a soldier, on the Israeli side.
The father of five children takes a deep breath and continues, “I work one day, and I take 10 days off work.
No work, no money, no health, no education. Gaza is the largest prison in the world. If you enter it, you cannot leave.”
For nearly 15 years, Israel has imposed a strict land, sea and air blockade on the Strip, a narrow coastal strip inhabited by more than two million people, most of whom were displaced from their original towns in 1948. Most of them depend on the aid of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
Gaza residents can only pass through the crossings into Israel with difficult permissions.
The Gaza Strip's only outlet to the outside is through the Rafah crossing, which does not open regularly, and the Palestinians suffer greatly to obtain permission to leave it, and they pay large sums of money for it.
no confession
Al-Hasso's wife, Donia Al-Menirawi, says that UNRWA does not recognize the Syrian refugees in the Strip.
Donia, who suffers from several diseases and does not have the costs of treatment, adds, “(UNRWA) does not recognize my children.
Their answer is always: You are a Syrian refugee, and our task here is to serve the Palestinian refugee.”
And she continues, "We came here thinking that it is a livable country. What we saw here is beyond imagination. The situation is very miserable."
"Where do I get the treatment from?" asks the woman, as her five children sit around her on a worn-out mat.
We can hardly secure the rent of the house,” before she added with tears, “My children are Syrians who are forbidden to leave Gaza. We have appealed to the whole world and there is no answer, and I have no hope that things will improve.”
"The word prison is very few on Gaza," says Donia.
Syrian refugees in the Gaza Strip hold expired passports, and they must return to Syria to renew them.
Last year, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees succeeded in transferring nine Syrian families from Gaza to European countries, through the Israeli Ben Gurion Airport.
Also, over the past ten years, attempts by Syrian refugee Lina Hassoun, 52, and her son, Nawras, to return to Syria, where her husband and children remained, failed.
"There is no travel or work," said the woman, who used to work in a beauty salon for women.
The situation in Gaza is very difficult.”
She added, "My house in Damascus was destroyed during the war. My husband and children are fine, but there is no stability there or here," as she lives in a room in her sister's house.
Neither Lina nor her 24-year-old son, Nawras Deeb, knew that her sister's visit, which was supposed to end in a month, would continue until today.
"Since that time I haven't seen my father and my brothers, I left school and I didn't go to one here," says Nawras.
The young man in his twenties refers to his work "filming episodes of the chef - the Syrian refugee in Gaza - and the countryside of Qassem, and broadcasting them on social media."
We make a life
The chef, culinary instructor, and Reef Qassem arrived in Gaza via Egypt, while his brothers left Aleppo, Syria, for Turkey.
In Gaza, Qassem married a journalist, and today they have a daughter.
In his home, he established a modest kitchen to train chefs to make Syrian dishes.
"We face all circumstances to make a better life," he says in a defiant tone. "The oldest training courses in the field of cooking."
According to Qassem, "People here love Syrian meals, but the materials required to teach well-known Levantine foods are not found in Gaza, due to the siege."
"I settled in Gaza, and I am waiting until they find a solution for us and resettle us in European countries that accept refugees, especially since we entered through the tunnels and we have no papers," said the blonde-bearded young man, while preparing a new meal in his kitchen to be posted on YouTube.
Qassem describes the people of Gaza as "good people", but the life of the Syrians here is "very difficult".
Qassem had founded, with others, an association to help Syrian refugees in Gaza, coordinating with the Palestinian presidency and government and with the UNHCR to help them travel.
As for his friend Anas Katerji, he established the “Al-Halabi” restaurant, which serves shawarma with a Syrian flavor.
The young man says, "The situation in Gaza has gone from bad to worse. You can hardly pay your rent, and there is no luxury in Gaza."
Katerji, 33, hopes to meet his mother, and that “the name of our restaurant will spread globally,” especially since he established “the restaurant in Gaza in the style of the same family restaurant in Aleppo.”
"We live the life of a prisoner. Traveling is an almost impossible goal for the Syrian in Gaza," said the Syrian refugee who married a Gazan girl.
• The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees succeeded last year in transferring nine Syrian families from Gaza to European countries through the Israeli Ben Gurion Airport.
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