At least 200 British citizens or dual nationals are trapped under the bombing in Gaza and some of them have desperately launched an SOS directly or through their relatives in the United Kingdom, demanding urgent evacuation through the Rafah crossing, the only way. escape route to the south of the Palestinian enclave, controlled by Egypt.
The British Government has in fact sent Border Force troops to Egypt due to the possibility that a "humanitarian pause" in Israel's war offensive would allow the evacuation. "We want to be able to bring them home," said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. "But it's something we can't do immediately, although we are ready to do it as soon as the opportunity arises."
"We need our Government to help us get out of here, we don't understand what they are waiting for," laments British Nasser Hamid Said, trapped with his wife and two children in Jabalia, north of Gaza, in statements to The Guardian. "We have heard many times that they are trying, but what are they really trying?"
Hamid Said, 52, traveled with his family from London to his sister's funeral in early October, days before the Hamas attacks that left 1,400 dead and Israel's military offensive that has now left more than 6,000 documented dead. in Gaza, according to Palestinian authorities. "We are in an emergency and I fear for the lives of my children," he warns from his relatives' house, where he sleeps under a staircase and fears he will run out of food in a week.
Also in Jabalia is the family of Faras Abuwada, who works as a legal consultant in London and who traveled with his wife and five children to Gaza in September. He returned alone and hoped to bring the family back in October, when conflict broke out. Since then, he has been desperate to be reunited with them and even traveled to Egypt on his own in the hope of being able to wait for them at the Rafah crossing, but the authorities forced him to turn around when he reached Arish, in the north of the peninsula. from Sinai.
"The government has deceived the British in Gaza," laments Abuwada. "They're not doing anything, just waiting for people to be killed."
On October 12, the British Government authorized flights for the repatriation of its citizens or dual nationals from Israel, after the Hamas attacks in which 12 Britons died. Six others are missing, including two teenagers, Ella and Dafna Zin, who are among the dozens kidnapped.
In contrast, British citizens in Gaza lament the abandonment by the authorities. "The response has been regrettable," Mohammed Ghalayini, a resident of Machester, who was visiting his family in the Strip, warned The Independent. "Ten days ago I received an email (from the Foreign Office), they haven't even sent me a text message. Others I'm in contact with have only received a call."
Ghalayini claims to have lost 37 members of his "extended family" in the bombings. He himself had to move four times and continues to live south of Gaza City, along with 15 other survivors, in an "almost completely destroyed" neighborhood.
"It is obvious that they are not making much noise to rescue us because their support for Israel is more important," Ghalayini laments. "If they really cared about their citizens, they would exert their influence, but they don't."
"The UK and world leaders are allowing the death of Palestinian civilians, including children, and will go down in history as a stain on humanity," a British National Health Service (NHS) doctor who came to Gaza three days before the Hamas attacks and was trapped with his wife and three children under the bombardments.
"The children are terrified and have even told us: 'Let them kill us so that this ends,'" said the doctor, who preferred not to reveal his name for fear of reprisals. "My parents' house has been destroyed and my sister is so desperate that she has already imagined the ordeal of having to search for her dead relatives and identify her bodies."
"It is as if our politicians have responded to the IRA attacks by bombing the Belfast neighborhoods where the civilian population lives," added the doctor, who has contacted the MP for his constituency in Wales, Geraint Davies, to raise his complaints to parliamentary leaders. "It is outrageous that a different standard is being applied to the population of Gaza. I don't understand how this can be allowed to happen."
From Scotland, Chief Minister Humza Yousaf joined the call for a ceasefire due to the dramatic situation that his own in-laws, Elizabeth and Maged El-Nakla, who live in Dundee and traveled to Gaza to visit their family, are going through. family (Yousaf's wife, Nadia El-Nakla, is of Palestinian origin).
"We have finally heard from them," Yousaf wrote on his X account - formerly known as Twitter - this Sunday, hours after having confessed his utmost concern after losing communication for two days. "Thank God they are alive. But they have been left without drinking water."
