Gaza – Special to Safa
In the cold hospital rooms and crowded accommodation apartments outside the Gaza Strip, the clock ticks with deadly slowness for the thousands of patients and their companions who left the Strip for treatment, waiting for the countdown to the opening of the Rafah land crossing and their return.
With the Gaza Strip administration committee announcing the opening of the Rafah land crossing this week, feelings of anxiety about the disease have turned into a fever of anticipation.
“I want to return to my children and recover among them after their mother was martyred and my son died,” says Mamoun Mi, who accompanied his mother during the first week of the war on her treatment trip to Egypt.
“Mai,” who recently lost his son after he fell into a water hole in the northern Gaza Strip, is constantly yearning to return to Gaza.
“They demolished my house and killed my wife. I tried to bring my children but I couldn’t. Then my son Atta died in a hole because there was no one to take care of them,” he tells Safa News Agency, earnestly hoping that the crossing will be opened “honestly.”
The dream of recovery and return
“My dream now is not just to recover, but to return and kiss the soil of Gaza,” says Rehab Abdel Rahman, who left with her sister at the beginning of the war to receive treatment in the United Arab Emirates.
She told Safa News Agency, “I was accompanying my sister at the beginning of the war and Gaza was fine, but my sister died and I was prevented from returning.”
Rahab, 50, remained alone in gatherings of citizens in rooms hosting them inside the Emirates, while her house was demolished and her husband is still waiting for her return.
Anticipation since the announcement
Abdullah Baraka, a cancer patient, left the Gaza Strip with his wife to receive chemotherapy treatment, which had been interrupted at the beginning of the war of extermination.
He says, “I finished my doses two months ago, but I feel that my soul is still there under the rubble in Khan Yunis.”
He adds, “I heard the news about the opening of the Rafah crossing, and my wife and I have been following the news from our neighborhood, hoping to God that this time it will be serious.”
“My health deteriorated in Egypt because my mental state was not good, and they amputated part of my foot,” he complains about the pain of his alienation and illness.
Mohammed Asaliya, a patient currently in Egypt, says about the opening of the crossing, “I want to live or die among my children, not in exile.”
He adds, “Closing the crossing deprived me of being with them in all the fear, terror, bombing, and displacement they faced.”
He emphasizes that the patients around him are eagerly awaiting the opening of the crossing so they can move around comfortably, and that their treatment abroad will not turn into being denied return or being imprisoned in Gaza.
One of the companions said yesterday that his father, who was amputated as a result of a bombing that targeted their home, asks him every day: Have they opened the road?
Maryam Jameh, who is accompanying her husband, is counting the minutes to pack her luggage, which is heavy with medicines and memories, so that she can “return to her daughters and sons in their solitude,” as she tells Safa News Agency.
The Rafah land crossing, located on the Egyptian-Palestinian border, is the only lifeline for the Gaza Strip to the outside world, especially in light of the ongoing closure of all other crossings by the Israeli occupation.
Since the start of the war of extermination in October 2023, the area surrounding the crossing has been subjected to intensive military operations, leading to its closure for long periods or its operation at a minimum level of efficiency.
Human rights and health estimates indicate that the approximate number of those outside Gaza is 2,500 patients, 6,000 wounded, in addition to 12,000 companions and stranded people.#Patients and companions crossing
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