Families divided as Palestinians with foreign citizenship leave Gaza

Dozens of Palestinians with foreign passports crossed through the war-torn Gaza Strip's only exit for the second straight day on Thursday (November 2), escaping Israel's suffocating siege into the empty Egyptian desert. But the evacuation rush left families divided by citizenship status in painful limbo.

Nizar, a 41-year-old aid worker from Gaza City, gently shook his children awake at dawn and drove to Gaza's southern Rafah crossing with his wife, 8-month-old son and 6-year-old daughter, Zainab — a dangerous road trip even from where they'd sought refuge in central Gaza.

The bombardment didn't stop and they didn't know what awaited them at the border. All they knew was that the quirk of history that led to Zainab's birth in San Francisco gave her American citizenship and the family its only ticket out of a war that has ravaged Gaza, killed thousands of Palestinians and given his once-bubbly daughter panic attacks and nightmares.

Nizar jumped up when he heard Hamas authorities call Zainab's name from the loudspeaker at the crowded Rafah terminal. But border officials quickly told him that US citizens were the only ones allowed to evacuate and that the rest of his family couldn't cross into Egypt. Many families, they said, had been separated for this reason.

“It's just total confusion, nobody understands what is happening,” Nizar said. “There are just tons of families who are very confused and unable to join their relatives and leave.”

The U.S. embassy in Israel didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the issue of families being separated at the border. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to visit Israel on Friday to discuss the conflict.