A photo published by the French website "Media Part" of the Palestinian couple Ibrahim and Shaden

The smell of Palestinian coffee that you smell as you enter the home of the two Gazans, Ibrahim and his wife, Shaden, on the outskirts of the city of Rennes, northwest of France, may indicate a peaceful life, but how far this couple’s diary is from stability, as the French “Media Part” website says in an investigation into the story of this Gazan family, which was surrounded by coverage. Extensive media coverage over the past few days.

Last year, a decision was issued to expel the family after their asylum request was rejected. Although the decision was suspended, life on the margins of the law is harsh, and what is most difficult is for the husband and wife to receive news of their loved ones who were martyred in Gaza, and for whom they have nothing.

In 2018, the Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons rejected an asylum request submitted by Ibrahim and Shaden, and the decision was confirmed by a competent court, leaving them and their children in an illegal situation after two years of legal procedures.

But the biggest shock came last May when they received an order to leave French territory.

A previous demonstration in Paris in support of Gaza (Anatolia)

"They want to send us to our deaths"

The eldest of Ibrahim and Shaden's three daughters came to France when she was two and a half years old. She only survived the nightmares of the bombing she experienced in the Gaza Strip in 2018 with great difficulty, and even after recovering, she is still afraid to go to the toilet alone, as her mother says.

The daughter recovered, but the parents were still under the horror of the events in Gaza. The mother was pursued by the Arab press after her brother Majd was martyred and her father was wounded in the bombing of the family home in the middle of the Gaza Strip. The rest of the family ended up in a refugee camp near Rafah, where Israel was preparing for a major attack.

“Despite all that, they want to return us there, they want to send us to our death,” shouts Ibrahim, who refuses to describe himself as an immigrant, and insists on the word “without a homeland.”

"We left a life there"

Ibrahim, a French language teacher, arrived in France on a student visa in 2016, and his wife joined him in 2018.

The expulsion decision shocked the family greatly. “We are complying with the conditions, we have friendships among the French, and I have the promise of a work contract.” The husband and his wife enumerate the aspects of their entitlement to remaining in France.

"We have been living in France for 6 and 8 years, respectively, and we speak French, but they refuse to give us legal documents. We left a life there, an apartment and a teacher's profession, and came here with our money. From the beginning we paid all our expenses without any help."

An investigation in a local newspaper helped shed light on the family's situation. Pressure from media coverage caused the municipality to suspend the eviction decision.

In a statement, the municipality denied the existence of a plan to implement the deportation decision to Palestine in the current circumstances, but the decision itself still stands, and the Administrative Court is considering an appeal filed by Ibrahim and Shaden last November.

At the same time, the husband and his wife requested a re-review of the asylum file, but rejecting the request again may mean activating the expulsion decision.

"The bank is quiet"

It is true that the municipality suspended the expulsion decision, but it is still strongly defending it. In its plea last month before the Administrative Court - which was viewed by Media Part - it justified the move by saying that “the husband and wife did not prove that they lacked any ties in their country of origin.”

Although it acknowledges that the situation has deteriorated greatly in Gaza, the municipality sees it as “generally stable” in the West Bank, and therefore, according to it, the family can remain there, and the children can continue their studies, especially since they are still in the first stage of education.

“They don’t even know that Gazans are forbidden from entering the West Bank,” Shaden exclaims in amazement. What made them decide to stay in France was the psychological condition of the children.

The couple avoids the media around their daughters, but they feel everything, Shaden says.

The family's lawyer, Lou Verji, expresses her shock: "The husband and his wife love France. Ibrahim is a French language teacher and is waiting for a work contract. The husband and his wife are completely integrated into the life of their city."

For this lawyer, the expulsion decision is a symptom of the quantitative policy favored by the Minister of the Interior, who insists on issuing departure orders to nationals of war-torn countries.

The lives of Ibrahim and Shaden have become suspended, as described by the “Media Part” website.

Life on hold

The lives of Shaden and Ibrahim now depend on two decisions: whether to obtain asylum or not, and canceling or confirming the expulsion decision.

Until that happens, they live according to the news bulletins, following the news of their families there. The numbers of martyrs are so great that we are looking for names, region by region, says Shaden.

We do not receive news from our families for weeks sometimes due to the outage of the Internet and the electricity needed to charge mobile phones. When messages do arrive, they are mostly two words: “We are alive.”

In the entrance to the house, Shaden hung a necklace encrusted with a picture of her late brother. Perhaps she would have been able to see him for the last time before war broke out and he was killed if France had granted her residency documents.

Source: French press