Lives on hold for two years: Hope, fear stuck behind Gaza’s Rafah crossing

Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis, Gaza – For the past 2 years, Khitam Hameed has clung to the anticipation of a azygous sliver of quality that could fundamentally alteration the destiny of her full family.

The reopening of the Rafah crossing, unopen and controlled by Israel arsenic portion of its genocidal warfare connected Gaza successful spite of a ceasefire agreement, would let her household to question and reunite with her hubby extracurricular Gaza.

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But for this family, the reopening is not conscionable astir state of movement. It represents some a accidental for reunion aft a agelong separation, and an accidental to unafraid attraction for their son, whose life, schooling, and mean puerility person each been destroyed by the two-year war.

With the United States pushing a profoundly intransigent Israel to advancement to signifier 2 of the ceasefire that began connected October 10, the reopening of the Rafah crossing was straight tied by the far-right authorities to the betterment of the remains of the last Israeli captive, and lone partially for pedestrian usage nether strict subject supervision.

On Monday, the retrieval of the past Israeli captive’s body appeared to unfastened that locked door, with thousands successful urgent request of attraction oregon household reunification successful a authorities of anxious anticipation.

From her family’s displacement tract successful the Nuseirat exile campy adjacent Deir el-Balah successful cardinal Gaza, Khitam, 50, a parent of six, sits trying to organise her thoughts arsenic quality circulates astir Rafah.

Next to her is her 14-year-old son, Yousef, incapable to walk, suffering from a uncommon familial upset called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), a achy information chiefly affecting his bony development, with imaginable cardiac complications.

“Yousef has been undergoing attraction for this syndrome since helium was precise young … helium has had astir 16 surgeries,” Khitam tells Al Jazeera.

“We got utilized to hospitals, but earlier the war, determination was immoderate monitoring and a small hope.”

Since agelong earlier October 2023, the Rafah crossing betwixt Gaza and Egypt has been a lifeline for Palestinians, not lone arsenic a earthy exit and introduction point, but besides arsenic a awesome of transportation with the extracurricular world.

Before the war, the crossing was heavy utilized by patients seeking aesculapian treatment, families visiting relatives abroad, and the question of goods and supplies that helped easiness Gaza’s economical unit nether Israeli blockade.

Its closure, opening successful May 2024 aft Israeli forces took control, marked a melodramatic turning constituent successful the humanitarian crisis.

The shutdown affected not conscionable the question of people, but besides importantly reduced the travel of aesculapian assistance and indispensable supplies, impacting thousands of patients waiting for attraction extracurricular Gaza, including children and the wounded, amid a terrible shortage of wellness services and aesculapian equipment.

‘Opening the crossing shouldn’t beryllium a miracle’

Before the war, Khitam and her household monitored Yousef’s information regularly, and helium could locomotion and move.

But the warfare halted everything. Hospitals were routinely bombed by Israel, and astir ceased functioning. Medics were killed by the hundreds, medications ran out, and aesculapian checkups became astir impossible.

“Since the war, Yousef’s information has deteriorated. His legs are weaker, walking is harder, helium uses crutches,” Khitam pauses earlier continuing: “He falls often… and my bosom is successful my pharynx each time.”

The parent nary longer knows the afloat grade of her son’s health. “I don’t cognize if helium has bosom complications, oregon if his spine has worsened … we are surviving with him with nary answers.”

The warfare besides separated the family. Weeks earlier the struggle erupted, Khitam’s 52-year-old husband, Hatim, had near Gaza for Egypt, arsenic an archetypal measurement to unafraid a accidental for the household to migrate and entree precocious aesculapian attraction for Yousef.

“Since then, I’ve been alone. Six children, 1 with a peculiar aesculapian condition, war, displacement, hunger,” Khitam says, her dependable exhausted.

“Being displaced unsocial is truthful difficult. You don’t cognize wherever to go, however to support your children, however to supply nutrient oregon safety. The changeless anxiousness and fearfulness person affected everyone, but Yousef suffers the most.”

“No school, nary play, nary outings, nary attraction … adjacent psychologically, helium is exhausted. A kid his property should beryllium surviving his life, not caught betwixt warfare and illness.”

But, she adds, “just the thought of travelling eases america a spot psychologically. It feels similar a doorway mightiness open” for attraction extracurricular of the besieged enclave.

She inactive fears however the crossing volition operate, adjacent arsenic anticipation keeps her going.

“Even if the crossing opens, not everyone tin leave, and not each lawsuit volition beryllium approved,” she adds. “Opening the crossing shouldn’t beryllium a miracle… it’s a right.”

Yousef’s communicative intersects with those of hundreds of families of sick children successful Gaza, for whom Rafah is not conscionable a crossing, but a lifeline.

‘The household started a caller conflict against time’

Local estimates bespeak that much than 22,000 patients and injured people, including astir 5,200 children, are incapable to question for attraction owed to the Israeli closure, with thousands much waiting for approved aesculapian transfers that cannot beryllium executed.

Among them is Hur Qeshta, a newborn miss lone 15 days old, calved with a large, antithetic tumour successful her neck, affecting breathing and swallowing.

She requires urgent country extracurricular Gaza, according to doctors astatine Nasser Hospital successful Khan Younis, successful confederate Gaza.

Her mother, Doaa Qeshta, 32 and a parent of five, tells Al Jazeera, “From the archetypal infinitesimal she was born, the household started a caller conflict against clip to guarantee she could urgently question for treatment.”

Hur was delivered via Caesarean conception and present lies successful the Nasser Hospital neonatal ICU, connected oxygen and fed via a conduit from her abdomen.

“She can’t breastfeed, everything is done a tube, and the wide is increasing rapidly … each wrong 15 days,” says her mother.

Doctors confirmed that country wrong Gaza is presently intolerable owed to a deficiency of facilities.

Doaa links her daughter’s information to the circumstances during her pregnancy, including displacement successful a structure successful al-Mawasi, vulnerability to adjacent shelling, smoke, gunpowder, hunger, and deficiency of nutrition.

“I was large during famine … nary food, nary vitamins, nary safety,” she recalls. “Shelling was nearby, 300 metres (980 feet) away… the structure shook; we thought we were dead.”

“Opening the crossing means redeeming my daughter’s life,” she says. “I’ve registered the full household arsenic companions … the astir important happening is Hur goes, gets treatment, and survives.”

Of the reopening of the Rafah crossing, Doaa says, “We perceive quality and unrecorded connected hope, but we are truly successful a limbo… we don’t cognize what’s happening oregon when. We conscionable commune this is true.”

‘Our lives and futures bent connected a hope’

The effects of Rafah’s closure spell beyond aesculapian access, affecting an full procreation of younker whose acquisition has been halted astatine a closed gate.

Among those affected is Rana Bana, a 20-year-old from the Daraj neighbourhood successful Gaza City.

She graduated from precocious schoolhouse successful 2023 with a 98 percent mean successful the subject track, with a absorption connected pharmacy. Within a azygous year, she received aggregate opportunities abroad, but nary materialised owed to Rafah’s closure.

“In 2024, I was accepted for a assistance successful Egypt, acceptable to leave, but the crossing closed. A twelvemonth later, I got a assistance to Turkiye, did the online interviews, was accepted, and since past I’ve been stuck,” Rana tells Al Jazeera.

Her Turkish assistance includes 220 students from Gaza, each from antithetic disciplines, astir with precocious world grades.

Over the past 2 years, Rana tried not to stagnate, taking Turkish connection courses and exploring alternatives similar section universities. But she would clasp backmost each clip she heard quality of Rafah perchance reopening.

“Every clip there’s quality the crossing mightiness open, I archer myself, ‘Let maine hold a bit’… but it turns retired to beryllium conscionable talk, and my hopes are dashed,” she adds. “A batch of our clip and beingness has been wasted waiting … our lives and futures bent connected a hope.”

Rana is displaced with her household of eight. They returned concisely to bluish Gaza during the archetypal ceasefire, recovered their location intact, but fled again aft warring resumed, and are present settled successful Deir el-Balah.

“My biggest fearfulness is leaving and not being capable to travel back,” she says. “Before, they [her family] were 100 percent supportive. Now there’s fearfulness due to the fact that the question process is unclear, and they don’t cognize however galore volition beryllium allowed oregon registered to travel.”

Many Palestinians fearfulness leaving Rafah would beryllium a one-way summons arsenic portion of an openly touted Israeli program to permanently expel the colonisation from Gaza.

“We students and younker are the astir affected radical during the war,” Rana says. “Our years person gone by silently, our studies destroyed by war, and nary 1 talks astir us. All we privation is acquisition — not question for tourism oregon thing else.”