“They paid a thousand dollars to leave”: a Russian woman from Gaza described her experience

Russians evacuated from the Gaza Strip were placed in a children’s camp near Volokolamsk. Previously, refugees from Ukraine lived there.

– Those who have somewhere to go leave the capital, no one stays in the camp. All my friends have already left. Many have apartments, their parents are alive,” says Elena. — Those who remain are those who lived in Gaza for 30 years and lost Russian connections. Some are still recovering. There are doctors and psychologists in the camp who help you adapt.

My friend Anya went to Volgograd, Katya to Astrakhan, Alena to the Stavropol Territory, and another girl to Kaliningrad.

It looks like they bought tickets. Someone’s parents sent money to them. Many never received their salaries. In Gaza, salaries are usually paid before the 10th. But at the beginning of October, hostilities just began and the people were left without money…

We lived in Gaza for many years, then in Egypt for five years. When we returned to Russia, we didn’t take off our warm clothes for a long time and were constantly freezing. It took a year to acclimatize. So it will be difficult for the evacuees. The first winter you will definitely have to get used to the cold. It will be easier next year.

“It’s impossible to get out through Israel”

— It’s difficult to leave Gaza even in peacetime. How did people go on vacation?

“We had to sign up six months in advance and wait for permission to leave. When we lived there, we waited five months for permission to leave Gaza.

To travel through Egypt, you had to pay a decent amount. The trip was organized by Palestinian-Egyptian companies. To cross the border, people paid from $250. And in the summer season, when there are vacations and holidays, the cost reached 800-1000 dollars per person.

But it was almost impossible to get out through Israel. Even foreigners who lived in Gaza and did not have a Palestinian passport were not allowed in. For them, if you live in Palestine, you are Palestinian, not Russian.

I traveled only with a Palestinian passport; they did not recognize my Russian one.

— Is dual citizenship allowed in Palestine?

– At least some citizenship is allowed there. Many foreigners apply for a Palestinian passport solely to leave the enclave.

— Among those evacuated to Russia, are there people who only have Palestinian passports?

— My friend’s husband does not have Russian citizenship, only Palestinian. They haven’t arrived yet. I think they will simply issue him a visa at the airport.

“There will be no problems with employment”

— At the airport I talked with some evacuees. A lot of them are doctors. Why is that?

— Mostly those who arrived were those who once studied in our country: surgeons, cardiologists, dentists, gynecologists, and facial surgery specialists.

They have Russian diplomas, I think there will be no problems with employment. Moreover, they have a huge practice, especially gynecologists. In the Gaza Strip, women give birth a lot. Our maternity hospitals are half empty, there is nothing like that there. In Gaza there are large families, four children are nothing.

— I heard that the husbands of some Russian women remained in Gaza.

— My friend Lena still has a husband. Tanya’s husband, Mahmud, also did not leave; he is a vascular surgeon. Mostly dentists, gynecologists, that is, private traders, flew away.

— The Ministry of Emergency Situations and volunteers provided people with warm clothes. What else do people need?

– In everything. When the Israelis announced a ground operation, people grabbed small suitcases, money, everything they needed for a few days. No one expected that the conflict would drag on. I hope Muslim organizations will organize help for them.

Moreover, people do not know how long they will stay in Russia. My girls say: now we’ll rest, then we’ll start thinking about how to live further. The main thing now is to get the children out of the stressful state, and it will take adults two weeks to come to their senses.

“I was surprised that the people who flew to Russia looked calm, there were no hysterics or tears.

– They’re used to it. I myself survived three military conflicts. In 2014 (when the Israeli retaliation operation “Enduring Rock” was underway) – “MK”) We didn’t leave the apartment for 51 days, but at least we didn’t destroy the house. What is happening now is a nightmare.

“We didn’t have time to sell the apartment in Gaza”

— Do you know anything about the situation at the Al-Shifa hospital? Israel found no clear evidence of Hamas activity at the hospital.

— There were no tunnels or Hamas. Israel entered the hospital on Wednesday and destroyed the central warehouse with medicines. There wasn’t even any blood left for transfusion.

It seems they found the room where the hospital security was sitting. But they said it was a Hamas weapons warehouse. As far as I know, the Israeli army has already left Al-Shifa.

In general, ordinary people living in the enclave had no idea about the work of the military wing of Hamas. Nobody knew what operations they were developing. Their names are called, but no one has seen the faces of these people.

Militants with machine guns did not walk the streets. Sometimes in the mornings we could only hear a rocket being launched from our territory, and that was all.

They also say everywhere that everyone in the enclave is for Hamas… Yes, people there just want to live and work peacefully, raise children, they are so tired of all this…

— One of the evacuated women at the airport said that she hoped to return…

– This is my Anya. She said, “My heart is in Gaza.”

— And there are many who would like to return?

“I think someone will come back to see what happened to their house.” Someone hopes to receive at least some payments. The houses are all private. They destroyed everything, leaving no stone unturned. The international community must respond. By the way, I still have an apartment there too, I don’t know what happened to it.

— Why didn’t you sell it if you haven’t lived in Gaza for a long time?

— The last time we were there was three years ago. Everyone was thinking whether to sell or not. When they decided, the war began.

— Now, probably, you won’t find any buyers?

— If the apartment is intact, then you can sell it. People whose houses were bombed need to live somewhere. Our apartment is located in the center of the enclave, the location is good, a beautiful area. People have big apartments there, not like here. An area of ​​120 square meters is considered small. For most – from 150 to 250 meters, they occupy an entire floor.

If it weren’t for this situation, I would never have left Gaza. The climate there is good, clean, opposite our house there was an orange grove, vineyards, and the Mediterranean Sea nearby…

Read the material “Bank accounts are frozen”: a Russian woman evacuated from Gaza shared her problems.”