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Gaza's brain drain

Hamas officials see the flight of professionals and talented youth from the Gaza Strip as part of a systematic Israeli policy to empty the territory of skilled citizens through siege and regular wars.
Palestinians load suitcases onto a cart as others, hoping to cross into Egypt, wait for a travel permit at the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the southern Gaza Strip January 21, 2015. Egyptian authorities opened the Rafah border crossing on Tuesday for three days, officials said. Rafah is the only major crossing between impoverished Gaza, home to 1.8 million Palestinians, and the outside world that does not border Israel, which blockades the strip and allows passage mainly on humanitarian grounds. Egypt s
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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Dr. Marwan Sadeq, a Palestinian heart surgeon, emigrated from the Gaza Strip in late October 2014 to work at a university hospital in Austria. Sadeq was forced to leave Gaza under harsh conditions, most importantly the political fragmentation that has plagued Palestine for nearly eight years.

Gaza’s most famous surgeon told Al-Monitor in a telephone interview, “What prompted me to leave the Gaza Strip is our internal situation, which resulted in a lack of administrative stability in the health institutions, which no one is firmly leading and directing toward the best and most appropriate direction. Things are managed based on the idea of reducing damage rather than solving problems. This is in addition to the lack of development, vision and strategy.”

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