RAFAH — After Israel’s bombardment destroyed their house outside Gaza City, Rasha Ibrahim and her family fled to the south, with the plan to eventually make it into neighboring Egypt, to escape the hell of war.
Although her husband and their three children are native Palestinians, Ibrahim, 31, is Egyptian and hoped that would help her get the whole family out of Gaza through the tightly controlled Rafah crossing, the strip‘s only exit to the outside world since Israel imposed its blockade on the coastal enclave in October.
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In early December, Ibrahim submitted a request on an online platform launched by the Egyptian government for Egyptians who want to leave Gaza. She has yet to receive a response.
“We are dying in silence,” Ibrahim said from her nylon tent, as tears streamed on her cheeks, adding that the family has been struggling to meet the minimum needs for their survival. “We have nothing to eat. We only have two pieces of clothes each which I wash regularly so we can change. There is no underwear and it’s very cold,” she said. “We live in constant fear and terror.”
There is, however, a faster way to leave Gaza through the Rafah crossing — only available for those who can afford it. It requires thousands of dollars and knowing the right people to coordinate and secure the evacuation.
Many Palestinians have resorted to selling their jewelry and other personal possessions, borrowing from friends and relatives, online crowdfunding to raise the funds necessary to pay the traffickers who can get people through to safety on the other side of the border with Egypt.
Rafah crossing
After the war was triggered by Hamas’ unprecedented ambush on southern Israel that killed more than 1,200 people, Israel’s punishing bombing campaign that’s killed some 27,000 Palestinians has turned much of the coastal strip into rubble and forced most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people to flee their homes. More than 1 million Gazans have amassed in or around Gaza’s southernmost town of Rafah on the border with Egypt.
There’s no way can we afford this amount.
For years, a network of travel agents and brokers based in Egypt and Gaza have offered fast-track visas through Rafah for a price ranging from several hundred to several thousand dollars. The price has depended on how many times the crossing would be made; the urgency of the travel; or whether the person in question faces security restrictions that prevent him from visiting Egypt or crossing it into a third country.
Such a network flourishes in war times like the ongoing Hamas-Israel one which has raged since Oct. 7.
Brokers are now charging Palestinians between ,500 and ,000 for a transit permit, according to interviews with 15 Palestinians and Egyptians who want to leave the Strip. For Egyptians in Gaza, the bill amounts to about 0 each. Two interviewees have already left Gaza four weeks ago after paying ,500 each. Three said travel agents and brokers have deceived them and they lost their money. Others were desperately trying to raise the funds.
Ibrahim, the Egyptian mother, said she contacted the most famous Egyptian travel agency, “Hala Tourism.” An agent told her that the travel of her husband and their three children would cost ,000, she said.
“There’s no way can we afford this amount,” she said.
Hala Tourism did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
System of bribes
Travel agencies promote some of these offers online publicly or on closed groups on Whatsapp and other social media platforms. Journalists who called the listed numbers were given offers immediately without any fear of being exposed. The journalists, who pretended to be ordinary travelers or trying to help their family and relatives get out of Gaza, were told the prices were not negotiable.
It wasn’t clear how these agents coordinate the evacuations through Rafah crossing. However, allegations about a secretive bribery system facilitating the travel have long been raised.
The greedy are guarding the border.
“In 2022, we had already collected testimonies about Egyptian officers blackmailing Palestinians to let them out of Rafah,” Ahmed Ben Shamsi, regional communications director at Human Rights Watch, said.
He said that new reports of “high bribery rates for those desperate people who want to leave are depressing.” He denounced the ongoing Israeli bombing of Gaza and Egypt’s “greedy guarding” of the border.
Egypt has denied any bribery or blackmail practices at the crossing. In a statement on Jan. 10, Diaa Rashwan, head of Egypt’s State Information Service, rejected “unfounded allegations” of imposing additional fees on Palestinians at the Rafah crossing.
Even before the war, passing through the Rafah crossing wasn’t easy. The crossing, which is the sole exit between Gaza and Egypt, is run by Hamas’ Interior Ministry and Egyptian security forces. Lists of travelers should be sent to Israel for approval first.
The opening of Rafah crossing has long been considered “arbitrary and unpredictable,” said Lorenzo Navone, a lecturer in sociology at the University of Strasbourg. “No one can predict when it will open, who will be allowed to cross and [according to] what rule, criteria or principle.”
VIP service
From Gaza, the official process of obtaining a free crossing permit required “internal coordination” by submitting an application with the General Administration of Crossings and Borders of the Hamas-run Interior Ministry.
Approvals often take up to two months in the winter and six months in the summer, while those traveling for medical purposes may see their applications processed faster, according to interviews with travelers.
However, even obtaining a permit was not a guarantee – the Egyptian authorities might return Palestinians at the border for a variety of unexpected reasons.
Travel agencies such as “Hala Tourism” and its affiliated agencies began operating between Gaza and Egypt in 2019. Hala Tourism has provided a VIP service that includes a “coordination” service to cross the Rafah border quickly and comfortably for ,200. It provides a permit to cross within 48 hours, and coordinate the trip to the Egyptian capital, Cairo.
To facilitate the VIP service, a separate list was created. According to a 2018 report by the United Nations humanitarian agency, OCHA, this “two-list” system explained why some applicants were able to gain approval more quickly than those who registered months earlier.
According to figures collected by journalists working on investigative reporting from Gazs’s Crossings Administration, in 2022, 128,625 Palestinians left Gaza including 36,379 via the VIP service. And last year until the breakout of the war, 113,234 Palestinian travelers left the strip including 32,960 via the VIP service. The figures show that a third of travelers over the past two years left Gaza via the VIP service, reflecting the volume of traffic and its profits.
Egyptian coordination
Since the war, “Egyptian coordination” has become the only way out of Gaza through Rafah, Wael Abu Omar, the spokesman for the Palestinian crossings authority, said in an interview with journalists on January 11. He said that about 200 Palestinians and Egyptians cross Rafah on a daily basis.
While there are several travel agencies and independent brokers active in this field, Hala is the most prominent. Gazans who post online requests for coordination services are often directed to the Egyptian agency, which has offices in Cairo and Rafah. But it also works with at least seven local agents in Gaza, according to its social media posts.
The agency is owned by prominent Egyptian businessman Ibrahim Al-Organi, who heads the Tarabin tribe in the Sinai Peninsula. He has direct business ties with the Egyptian government, and in 2016, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi opened his company’s new complex consisting of seven marble production factories.
Hala Company and Al-Orjani Group declined to respond to journalists’ questions.
How the coordination works
Journalists contacted more than a dozen travel agencies and brokers to understand how the coordination process works in wartime.
An agent from the “Embassy for Travel and Tourism” agency in the Gaza Strip, which was listed as one of the agents of “Hala” in an Instagram post, told the caller that he has to pay ,000 to get his Palestinian mother and sister out of Gaza within seven days.
After crossing, we delete everything
“The Palestinian side has nothing to do with these permits. There are no normal arrangements, and these arrangements have not worked since the beginning of the war,” he said. “The entire process is in the hands of Egyptian intelligence.”
Another Egypt-based broker, with no known connection to a travel agency, asked in December for ,000 to arrange transit. To prove his credentials, the broker sent a copy of his ID card, a receipt from a previous client, and copies of 20 Palestinian passports that he said he was working to get them out of Gaza.
“You are paying half the price now, either through a bank transfer or through Vodafone Cash (an online payment system) and the rest upon transit,” he said. “The coordination will be completed within two to three days.”
He declined to provide names or phone numbers for those who he helped to cross. “Our system is that after crossing, we delete everything related to them for privacy, because if these documents fall into anyone’s hands, it will be a problem,” he said.
Even seriously injured Palestinians have to pay to get out, said Maher Mahmoud, a 32-year-old Palestinian, a mobile phones’ agent in Gaza.
“The brokers we spoke to asked for ,500 to get my wife out, and ,000 each for my two nieces, Farah and Reham, who were seriously injured during the war and cannot move without wheelchairs,” he said.
His two nieces were visiting relatives in Gaza when the war broke out, and they lost their mother and other siblings, he said. Their father is in prison. “The girls are now my responsibility,” he said. “They have no one to take care of them. But we are unable to pay these prices.”
Egyptians feel abandoned
As the Rafah crossing began to open in November to allow the evacuation of foreign passport holders and a select number of seriously wounded Palestinians, many in the Egyptian community in Gaza feel being abandoned by their government.
“I am an Egyptian. My husband and children are all Egyptian. How can I be asked to pay money to enter my country,” a woman who goes by the name Umm Muhammad wrote on Facebook.
Arab countries are not interested in evacuating their citizens
Since the outbreak of the war, Hala has been charging Egyptians a fee of 0 to obtain an exit permit, which is issued in up to 10 days, according to an agent. In an announcement on Facebook on January 16, the agency said that it would begin bookings with Egyptian IDs in addition to passports.
An Egyptian father of eight children, standing in front of the Mushtaha Travel and Tourism agency in southern Gaza, said: “Only those who have money can pay and leave.”
The man, who asked to remain anonymous so as not to risk his chance of leaving, said the travel agent asked for a total of ,500 to get his wife and eight children out.
He pointed out that he had not received a response from the Egyptian Foreign since he submitted his request to return to Egypt a month ago.
“Unlike other foreign countries, Arab countries are not interested in evacuating their citizens,” he said.
The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.
Even those who manage to raise some of the required funds have no guarantee of leaving easily.
A Palestinian journalist from Gaza and residing in London paid ,000 in November to a broker in an attempt to evacuate her mother, who was visiting Gaza from the U.K. when the war broke out.
The broker told her in an audio recording that the evacuation wouldn’t be possible because it now cost more than double.
“Listen, the prices are increasing every day, and whoever pays more will pass,” the broker said. “The crossing is a black market.”
The journalist is still searching for a broker or solution to get her mother out.
