(19 Feb 2025)
EGYPT PALESTINIAN FAMILY
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
LENGTH: 1:56
ASSOCIATED PRESS
El-Arish, Egypt – 16 February 2025
1. Various of Palestinian engineer from Gaza, Abd al-Karim Arafat sitting with his sons, family members having tea
2. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Abd al-Karim Arafat, Palestinian from Gaza living in el-Arish:
"I have one wish for the war to end, for peace to prevail in the country and for me to return, to return to my homeland."
3. Various of Abd al-Karim looking on
4. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Abd al-Karim Arafat, Palestinian from Gaza living in el-Arish:
"The decision (to leave) was difficult and as I told you, I did not make the decision in the beginning. I endured for more than five months until I made the decision (to leave Gaza). It was a difficult decision, but there was no escape. If you do not die from the war, you would die from hunger, hardship and disease. There is nothing left there, there is no life left now. I do not have a house there now, nor do I have a job, a farm, anything."
5. Various of Abd al-Karim’s son studying
6. Various of Abd al-Karim’s eldest son using phone
7. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Karim Arafat, Abd al-Karim’s son:
"When the bombing intensified (in Gaza), we fled to the south. My father spoke to one of his friends to find us shelter. We stayed in a small room for 200 days. After that, we left Gaza for el-Arish."
8. Sea seen from balcony
9. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Karim Arafat, Abd al-Karim’s son:
"I wish we could go back to our country (Gaza), that I could return to my friends, relatives and uncles. And (I wish) for Gaza to return to how it was (before the war), even better."
10. Wide shot from balcony showing Arish city sea
STORYLINE:
Palestinian father and son who fled war-battered Gaza Strip for Egypt dream of one thing, to return to their homeland and see it rebuilt.
Several months into the devastating Israel-Hamas war that began in October 2023, Palestinian engineer Abd al-Karim Arafat left with his family.
A tenuous ceasefire in the Gaza Strip has paused the fighting in the territory, but the family for now remains in the Egyptian city of el-Arish, in the northern Sinai Peninsula.
Abd al-Karim lost everything during the war including his home and a fruit farm that provided an income for the family.
"The decision (to leave) was difficult and as I told you, I did not make the decision in the beginning. I endured for more than five months," he said.
The current phase of the truce is set to expire in early March and it is unclear if the sides will extend it.
"I have one wish for the war to end, for peace to prevail in the country and for me to return, to return to my homeland," Abd al-Karim said.
Abd al-Karim’s family is one of several Palestinian families that fled the fighting for safety in the Egyptian city of el-Arish.
His balcony in el-Arish looks out to the sea – which has for years served as the only escape for Palestinians in Gaza as the tiny Mediterranean enclave lived through a suffocating blockade.
Before the war, Gaza was under an Israeli and Egyptian blockade imposed after the Hamas militant group seized power in 2007.
Four previous wars and divisions between Hamas and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority in the West Bank also took a toll on Gaza’s economy.
But the latest war has turned the Gaza Strip into a a landscape of destruction.
Abd al-Karim’s eldest son, Karim recalled the family’s hardship after getting displaced from northern Gaza because of the fighting.
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