CAIRO, Egypt — In July 2015, I applied for permission to travel at the Abu Khadra government complex — the official application center for all those who want to travel from the Gaza Strip through Rafah — in Gaza City, and found myself as number 10,962 in line.
Every time Egyptian authorities announced the reopening of the Rafah crossing, I knew that my turn was unlikely to come up due to the painfully slow movement through the crossing. But on June 1, the Egyptian authorities announced that the crossing would be opened and published the numbers of travelers permitted to pass. My turn was to come on the fourth and last day of the crossing’s opening: Sunday, June 5.
