The longest wait: My journey out of Gaza
Al-Monitor's correspondent documented her own journey from Gaza into Egypt during the Rafah crossing's brief opening in early June.
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.
Exiting Gaza now is dependent on luck and the convergence of many factors. Not all the buses scheduled on the first and second days of the crossing’s opening were permitted to leave due to obstacles set by Egyptian authorities, which pushed back my slated departure time, and only luck would determine whether I would be able to leave on the fourth day.
June 5 arrived. At 5:30 in the morning, I started my journey south. It was clear that the Hamas-led security forces were trying to maintain order in facilitating the passage of tens of thousands of travelers attempting to pass through the bottleneck.
