Around 30 Germans have left the Gaza Strip so far, but many people with German passports are still stuck in the war zone. They are demanding more support from the federal government. But now leaving the country is becoming even more difficult.
“Nothing is happening, inquiries at the embassy remain unanswered,” said the German-Palestinian Mazen Eldanaf in Gaza. Eldanaf has lived in Bonn with his wife for 43 years and came to the coastal strip to visit family for a week. He has seen hundreds of foreign citizens leaving the area in the past few days – but hardly any Germans.
“I’m just disappointed in our government,” he said. He and his family are deeply rooted in Germany. “We have businesses, employees, pay taxes, vote, but when it comes to our salvation: nothing,” said Eldanaf. His four adult children in Germany are also not getting anywhere. Nobody listens to them.
30 Germans were able to leave the Gaza Strip
75-year-old Jamal Abdel Latif also blames the German embassy in Ramallah. “Answering an email can’t be too much in a situation like this,” said Latif, who studied at the Technical University in Berlin in the 1980s and now wants to leave the country with his wife and two children. The only thing he was told: “We warned that no one should drive into the area.”
According to the Egyptian Red Crescent, 1,102 foreigners and Palestinians have left the Gaza Strip with a second passport since the Gaza war broke out. Several hundred Palestinians with German citizenship are currently still in the war zone. The Foreign Office in Berlin said that “intensive work” was being done to enable German citizens to leave the Gaza Strip.
But so far only a few Germans have been allowed to flee to Egypt from Israel’s ongoing air raids. The Foreign Office said that over 30 Germans were able to leave the coastal area on Friday, and before that on Wednesday it was “a low single-digit number”.
Departure from Gaza Strip stopped for now
According to Egyptian information, a total of around 7,000 foreign nationals from 60 countries are waiting to leave the country. But that doesn’t seem to be possible anymore for the time being. After the Israeli attack on an ambulance, departures from the Gaza Strip have been stopped for the time being. Injured Palestinians as well as foreigners and Palestinians with dual citizenship are affected.
Security sources in Gaza said that foreigners could not leave the Gaza Strip until the wounded could be brought to Egypt. A source close to the Egyptian Red Crescent also confirmed to the dpa that employees of the Palestinian Red Crescent had been ordered by the authorities to stop transporting wounded Palestinians for the time being. First, safe routes would have to be created for ambulances to travel from the Gaza Strip to the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
Israel’s army said it attacked an ambulance used by the Islamist Hamas during its advance in the north of the Gaza Strip. The military said several terrorists were killed. The Hamas-controlled Health Ministry said wounded people should be taken to the Rafah crossing so they can be treated in Egypt. The Palestinian Red Crescent said on Platform X that several health ministry and aid agency ambulances were on their way to Rafah when the rocket hit.
The Red Crescent condemned the attack on the ambulance convoy. 15 people are said to have been killed and another 60 injured in the rocket attack at the gates of the hospital. The information cannot currently be independently verified.
Conflict parties as a source
In the current situation, information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by the Palestinian and Israeli conflict parties cannot be directly verified by an independent body.