{"id":26423,"date":"2014-09-19T17:04:46","date_gmt":"2014-09-19T09:04:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=26423"},"modified":"2014-09-19T15:51:12","modified_gmt":"2014-09-19T07:51:12","slug":"with-desperation-mounting-hundreds-of-gazans-are-trying-to-reach-europe-in-risky-sea-voyages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/09\/19\/with-desperation-mounting-hundreds-of-gazans-are-trying-to-reach-europe-in-risky-sea-voyages\/","title":{"rendered":"With desperation mounting, hundreds of Gazans are trying to reach Europe in risky sea voyages"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Damaged<\/a>
Damaged and destroyed buildings in Gaza City. Photo from Al Jazeera \/ Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The university student was desperate to flee Gaza after suffering through years of border closures and three wars.<\/p>\n

In early September, a week after the latest war between Gaza\u2019s ruling Hamas and Israel, 22-year-old Mohammed Abu Toaimeh crossed into neighbouring Egypt. He handed $2,000 to traffickers and boarded a ship that was to smuggle him to Europe.<\/p>\n

Instead, he and dozens of other Gazans are missing amid reports that smugglers sank their vessel on purpose.<\/p>\n

Mohammed\u2019s mother, Ahlam, is plagued by guilt because she helped him scrape together money for the trip. \u201cI had hoped he could begin a new life, better than this life of war and destruction,\u201d she said in between sobs.<\/p>\n

In the past two months, more than 1,300 Gazans are believed to have gone to Egypt, some even sneaking in through a border tunnel, to embark on illicit sea voyages, said Ramy Abdu, a human rights activist tracking the trafficking.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a new escape route and a measure of growing desperation in the crowded sliver of land where two-thirds of those under 30 are unemployed.<\/p>\n

Dreams of emigration are common in Gaza, with polls regularly indicating more than 40 per cent would leave if given a chance. Traditionally, young men in Gaza have been encouraged by their families to work abroad and send money home.<\/p>\n

In recent years, some avenues of escape remained open, despite a border blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt after the Hamas militant group\u2019s takeover of Gaza in 2007.<\/p>\n

Most would-be emigrants have flown to Europe or the Far East from Egypt, often on student or tourist visas, and then attempted to stay.\u00a0Travel\u00a0on migrant boats was unusual.<\/p>\n

However, options diminished after Egypt\u2019s military toppled a Hamas-friendly government in Cairo in mid-2013. Egypt\u2019s new rulers sealed hundreds of smuggling tunnels under the border, cutting Gaza\u2019s main economic lifeline, and tightened\u00a0travel\u00a0restrictions. The restrictions sharply reduced the number of Gazans allowed to cross legally into Egypt and those who were permitted to fly from Cairo\u2019s airport.<\/p>\n

The recent 50-day war only strengthened the belief of many here that they have no future in Gaza.<\/p>\n

More than 2,100 Gazans were killed and more than 18,000 homes destroyed in the fighting. With Hamas sticking to its militant ideology, there are no signs that Israel and Egypt will ease the blockade significantly.<\/p>\n

In mid-July, about a week after the outbreak of the war, a gang of Egyptian smugglers and Palestinian middlemen began advertising sea trips to Europe as cheap and safe, said Abdu.<\/p>\n

Word of the boat trips quickly spread among the young men of Gaza, including Mohammed Abu Toaimeh, his 26-year-old brother Firas and their 19-year-old cousin, Hussein al-Jorf, who pleaded with their parents to raise the money.<\/p>\n

There was little to keep the three in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Mohammed and Hussein were studying law at a Gaza City university, with little prospect of employment after graduation.<\/p>\n

Mohammed and Firas lived together in their family\u2019s old home, which during the war was seized by Israeli soldiers. Mohammed\u2019s bedroom had served as a sniper\u2019s position, with two holes cut into a wall at shoulder level and the words \u201cwest\u201d and \u201csouthwest\u201d scribbled in Hebrew next to them.<\/p>\n

In the end, Firas stayed in Gaza because his parents couldn\u2019t afford the voyage for both sons. Hussein left Gaza on Sept. 1 and Mohammed followed two days later.<\/p>\n

Both entered Egypt legally via the Rafah border crossing with Gaza, after having obtained papers naming each as an escort for a parent seeking medical treatment in Egypt, the mother, Ahlam, explained.<\/p>\n

She said she and Mohammed reached the port city of Alexandria after a nine-hour drive. There, they handed $2,000 to a smuggler who called himself \u201cAbu Hamada, the Syrian\u201d and put them up in an apartment along with six other migrants.<\/p>\n

Ahlam, a 47-year-old mother of eight, said she last spoke to Mohammed by phone on Sept. 6 after a bus took him and Hussein to a waiting vessel.<\/p>\n

The International Organization for Migration said the ship sailed from the Egyptian port of Damietta that day with about 500 Palestinians, Syrians, Egyptians and Sudanese on board, including about 100 children. Abdu said 120 Gaza natives were on the ship.<\/p>\n

After four days at sea, smugglers intentionally rammed the vessel southeast of the island of Malta when the migrants refused to switch to a smaller boat they deemed unsafe, the migration organization said, citing survivor testimony.<\/p>\n

The witnesses told the IOM that about 300 people on the lower deck were trapped and drowned immediately, while others held on to each other or flotation devices. The fate of Mohammed, Hussein and others from Gaza is unknown.<\/p>\n

Zakariya Assouli, a Palestinian immigrant in Sweden, said his uncle, Shukri, was among the survivors and confirmed the boat was intentionally rammed.<\/p>\n

Shukri Assouli was picked up by a freighter and flown to Greece, but his wife and two small children are missing, Zakariya said by phone.<\/p>\n

He said his uncle had planned to join him in Sweden. \u201cHe was looking for a better future for him and his children,\u201d he said. He said he lost contact with the uncle after their conversation.<\/p>\n

The number of migrants and refugees from Africa and the Middle East trying to get to Europe by boat is growing, and more than 110,000 have reached Italy alone so far this year, said Carlotta Sami, a spokeswoman for the Italy office of the main U.N. refugee agency. Newcomers often try to get from there to other European countries, she said.<\/p>\n

Sami said she\u2019s seen an increase in the number of arrivals from Gaza over the past few weeks, but didn\u2019t have exact figures.<\/p>\n

Maj. Gen. al-Anani Hammouda, security chief in the Egyptian coastal region of Marsa Matrouh, said the number of European-bound Palestinian migrants in his area has increased dramatically in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were used to migrants from African countries, Bangladesh, or Syrians. But over the past month, we have been seeing a large number of Palestinians among the migrants,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, 47 Palestinians were among more than 150 migrants caught in a fishing boat off Alexandria. Elsewhere, a Palestinian arrested in Alexandria on Saturday told authorities he had entered Egypt through a tunnel from Gaza.<\/p>\n

In Gaza, a Hamas police spokesman said several suspected traffickers have been arrested.<\/p>\n

Firas, the brother of Mohammed, said he expects the exodus to continue. \u201cEven after the incident (with the capsized ship), everyone is eager to get out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While many leave through the Rafah crossing\u2014either with medical referrals or by bribing Egyptian officials\u2014more than 200 are believed to have left through a border tunnel, Abdu said.<\/p>\n

Firas said a fake medical referral costs $400, while a trip through a tunnel costs an additional $1,800.<\/p>\n

He said Abu Hamada told him that he can \u201cconnect us with people in Egypt to stamp our passports\u201d in the event of the tunnel option.<\/p>\n

Since the disappearance of his brother, Firas has put his emigration plans on hold to spare his mother more pain.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s enough that we lost one,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank and Maggie Michael in Cairo contributed reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The university student was desperate to flee Gaza after suffering through years of border closures and three wars. In early …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-headline","category-news-w","mauthors-karin-laub","mauthors-ibrahim-barzak","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}