834: Yousef and the Fourth Move
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Since the beginning of the warning, gaza use of a ash has spent a master of good timing and good luck, a story about a few months ago. And we remind you for a minute who he is and how capable he got his family from place to place, how as tex is real in october's usia, let is home on october eth, because he was afraid that jupille worries from was going to be bomb and the next day, october night, th jubail was bomb as a warm, moved him in his second time downtown th to a city called hyenas.

Then this will drop griffard from the sky, told everybody evacuate on you immediately gets safety for themself in rafa use, have packed up the door that day his wife, now his kids, his mom and IT is third move. And this is around the time that he started having conversations with one of our producers here, honey jeffrey walk. He told hana that he knew sisters were in high units, needed also to go to rail.

And he get whether arguing, pleading, making promises, wearing them down, and they still did not move until an airstrike hit the building next to them. Terrifying, right? You surprise to where they were as soon as they saw each other. You, the ministry, or shared the relief by being exactly how they always are with each other.

The first thing I said today when I met them, there is no discussion when I leaving.

so you didn't like hug .

them and cry. I relation, I don't is not about taking ing. I was laughing.

You should have died. I could be the Morgan. I, this is how i'm with my sister.

And did they laugh?

Where did they say no? But actually they were started to give me orders quickly. You need to talk to our cousin. Imagine, because he was also, as you need to invite him, finally took his sisters to safety.

and rather in a ten camp that he built for them. This back to december, every time you have ten camp of extended family and rafa good to sixty people with use of managing IT as mayor, repairman, cater driver, health care provider, and then on the same day, use of sister a CEO had a baby, bringing the population of the ten camp to sixty one prime minister visceral announce he was planning to evacuate rafle and invaded the city where uses family and over million other palestinians going use of a spacing, moving everybody for a fourth time.

And he's always been the one who's made this call for his family use of the one who decides it's too dangerous to stay where we are. And this one we have to go has to be now, and this is where we're going next. But this time user didn't know what I gone next.

Keep everybody safe and together going to a far south as you can go in gaza. They're really meant not be another place to run too. He told him back then. Actually.

to be honest, I don't want to think about that because I know there is no solution. And unfortunately, this time i'm completely useless because I ran out of options. So what i'm going to do.

I have never heard you talk like that use of i've never heard you say that you're always the guy that's like, yeah, i'll figure IT out all call zone so tomorrow, no, we don't have a right now but think .

I don't have options ahead of me. When I have options, i'll start to think deep about IT. But up to now i'm completely useless.

But the words one other option, there's just one that you have had never seriously considered. They could try to leave gaza, which might my gnome's choice, that anybody who want to do free, the place where bombs are following and getting harder and harder to find food, drink of water, but is not obvious choice for you sive.

And for lot of people as your hero today, what happens when you have gets pressed into a fourth move when that he is deeply ly, makes feelings about and not even sure you can pull off, and that's to try to get his family out as quickly as possible. For israel invaded the city where they are living. Time, he knew, was not on a side.

And if you think you can imagine what that entails, let me tell you, you really do not know they have of IT. You're about to witness speeds of ingenuity, strokes of luck and big power of cash on a deadline against enormous odds. And also, you'll see how harder is on this family to make this decision, how even trying to go tears them up, tears use of up .

from the .

easy chicago to american life, amErica gas. And with that two things to .

ha usf did not want to leave gaza, where he's from a place where he knows everyone, knows every system, has connections everywhere. His job is doing humAnitarian work in gaza for gazans, and his entire family is in gaza. A core part of music identity is that he takes care of the family.

So you have had no plan to leave, did not even want to think about leaving gaza. And then one day in february, he found out he might leave gaza. He was in the car with his wife and now, and their kids.

I was going with manal to her parents, were visiting her parents, and I heard my daughter and five years old year telling there to gona to egypt.

That meant to you, they're talking about IT during the day, and she's overhearing IT. yes.

So I understood that when my daughter came to ask me, means that they reach the limits and how they wanted .

do IT usaf did not realize that a conversation had started among the women in his family that wasn't so much happening behind his back as just away from him in the places he wasn't. Hi my .

hi mano.

I've heard so much about you. Me too. My day i've heard a lot about you. Man says you seph had told her and his mother he didn't want to leave, but if they ever wanted to leave gaza, he would make this happen. And now and his mom said, no.

their whole families and gaza, we thought .

IT was wrong to travel and leave them behind. I'm not new, like everyone thinking about living gardens. If SHE left, there was a good possibility sh'd never come back. So no, SHE said SHE didn't want to leave and SHE meant IT, but that men of that, maybe the idea is stuck to her. He thought of IT when her children screamed through bombing, or when they begging for chicken instead of more can food.

When SHE noticed, ellia had forgotten all of her alphabet, and he thought of IT when he spent the entire day looking for wood to boil water so her kids could drink. SHE worried, what if they ran out of time? What if the israel showed up before you have had another plan?

Then, when I mentioned all this to one of use of sisters, a seal, a seal is the sister who is most like you sive decisive a problem solve a planner. I went SHE was the first entering SHE said, let the children have a good life, go live SHE encouraged me. Honestly, a seal is the closest to me because she's been my friend since childhood.

I consider her like a sister. My favorite ite friend and the best friend I have had had to encourage me to do IT. That was very good for me because he knew what my interest were and told me my best interest was in living gaza. I thought we should harder our hearts a .

bit .

and leave for the sake of our children.

The process of considering leaving gaza in this war is not just one of wearing options, one item after another. It's also getting people's blessings. It's a series of permissions.

There is a CEO gave her blessing eventually the others have started to knowing that they were not gonna go, couldn't go, that their own extended families and lives and gaza use of smog, after some persuading, agreed to go with manual and usf and the kids. So IT was decided, manal told her kids they were going. And for her, that was the happiest moment, the relief of being able to say to her kids, this will end for you. They were excited, so excited that ellia, the five year old, ended up breaking the news to her dad in the car before man even had a chance to tell him. So you're thinking about leaving when soon and that how?

First of all, it's very, very expensive, very expensive. It's very long process, unclear process actually will. There is a lot of playing here and there. I like IT to not ignore postponed. Unfortunately, when I think about the decision in itself, if I get lost quickly because there is lots of details behind that decision, it's, it's it's really difficult. But making that decision is not getting alone with my personality at it's .

not getting along with your personality.

Yes, one hundred six days of war. And that wasn't enough to raise the idea in my head that I should leave gaza believing he. Now it's kind of a, i'm escaping my responsibility towards my sisters, my responsibility towards my job, my responsibility towards my friends who I am supporting, but i'm standing ahead, my responsibility towards my children.

It's very. Very, I don't know, it's very difficult decision. If you put these two responsible I, T, ie s in front of you, I have to choose.

This was march. Israel continued to say, our plan is to invade rafa. You've knew if they did invade, they might close the border.

There was limited time to act, he agreed. IT was the right choice for his children. And yet everything about how this move was happening was different, slower than I music act through the entire war.

Not that he was stalling, he'd made some calls. He was going through the steps, but old use of would have made a thousand calls, checking all the angles, calling in favors urgently, reading everything available about what israel might do next and when. And now this usaf did not sound like a person who knows there may only be a small window to make your next move, and it's easy to be too late.

But for me, to be honest, i'm not thinking about IT deeply, and I very sorry, and I know it's a wrong way. But for me, the only thing that I can do is to keep avoiding thinking about IT. Until IT became more closer.

I will do IT. I'm starting the process and all of that yet. It's it's very long process, but IT complicated the process. You sive .

couldn't talk about the process, how they'd get out on the record. He worried, justifiably, that any public statement could departition their chances of getting out. What he could say was that he had paid to register his family to leave, and that at some point his family's names would appear on a list of people allowed to cross the rough order.

But when that would happen, unclear another week past than another, those blessings manal had collected from everyone in the family, they meant IT. But the longer this wait went on, the blessings got a little warn. Use have started seeing IT when he checked in on his sisters.

One of the incident happened, we had an issue tween my sister, one of my sister, her husband, and when I went there, I had to any sold the issue there. I found out that my sisters were complaining now, so he's leaving. He's leaving us here with, in the circumstance cum stances, black, a plan.

They were a bit annoy, so like, okay, now you were pushing for that and now you are objecting. Then I found out it's a moment that they were angry and it's, I know how they about IT and and I believe they have the right to be scared that does me guilty, makes me feel guilty. But I am already guilty from the beginning. So already I have this already feel guilty.

He was not doing his job keeping them safe and together. But well, he waited use of, really did try on the safety front. He threw himself in to making sure his sisters would be OK without him.

There he lined up a million book ups, a guy with a car in case they needed to leave quickly. A guy to help with broken phones with internet problems. He told friends, i'm going to be calling on you. You need to look out for my sisters. He set up a contact at a currency shop so he could send money from egypt, and he stashed emergency cash with several different people he trusted.

Yeah, there is a lot of things had to be put in place and to be designated for someone because I found out that I was doing a lot of things.

You you have definitely been doing a lot of things. I would think you would need at least a dozen people to do all the jobs you've been doing.

I believe a hundred people would never do the job with love and fashion as I was doing IT. IT was always part of give me energy always when I am managing in things for them. That's the difference between me doing the job and hundred people doing the job.

President biden was warning as well not to invade raphia twenty six E, U. Countries issued a statement saying an invasion of rafa would be catastrophic. You have continued to wait.

There continue to be bombings, drones, gunfire all the time, but also something new, the use of noticed happening around him in rafa and at the family's team camp, a slow motion collab. Every day you have would notice a new deterioration of just daily life. There was no trash pickup, no police or services, nobody regulating traffic or businesses.

There was no governance. One day he'd got a call that someone's mother in law used the shower when IT wasn't her family's day. And by the time you have arrived, the conflict that exploded or another day.

So my brother in law had a fight with her neighbor, one of the neighbors and my two brothers were beating that guy and insult in a bad way. And IT happens that he is a friend of mine. And that difficult, they had to interview between both pologize ing here and there, trying to find to be medium what they think about.

Small children had fight. They want to speak. He didn't like, didn't like the way he responded. That is resulted any any clashes by hands.

Today I have another one with one of the other, other law has made with the another neighbor for another stupid reason. The circumstances and what we are going through is pushing us to become unstable mentally. So everyone is under huge pressure from the amount of responsibility, ie.

S that you have. You have to do or just to move from a place to the other, just trying to get cash. One from my end, everything is very dramatic.

The more of this use of saw, more he settled in to the decision to go.

Now it's a little common. We see people with guns had a lot of disputes between families, a lot of killing crimes, looting and and that that's that's effecting the entire society, said people are fighting for no reasons. Now few days ago we were, we had one of them.

We had voted trucking. So they had a lot of humAnitarian gania's have provided water, trucking and drinking voters by to these areas. We had a small dispute on the line would be put their jerrica in line. Small dispute have resulted seven people killed them. He has its simple as that.

What what happened?

I was in bad, what I was leading the shooting at next to us directly.

嗯。

it's like, handed me away. And, you know, the five planes and what then that why is just a small line in front of drinking goat? So that's one of the things that pushing me to, no, I have to rescue my children from that.

But use of you seen israeli bombs destroy homes. You've seen much more dramatic than not. Why did that get to you?

Uh that's a good question that feels difference when you look to IT as your own people then so you I I don't justify for this really is what they are doing and what they are coming in gaza. But when with all the aggrieved in that they are doing, it's a bit different the way you see IT, when you see IT among own deep. But societies can easily be radi than have destroyed like our societies destroyed now.

Seven weeks after israel announce plans to invade, rafa, use mono, were still waiting. Every night. They would check a telegram channel called the land port rough.

A crossing around ten P. M. IT would post screen shots of printed list of names. You'd have to zoom in on the photo, and if your name was on that list, you need to show up at the rough of crossing.

The next day, you'd been granted permissions across three hundred, sometimes four hundred, people a day. Use of the males names were never listed, but you have started seeing the names of people he knew had registered not longer for him showing up on the list by the end of march. He told me that must be close. Are you feeling .

and it's happening. And so I feel excited for that.

You feel excited.

You yeah, i'm afraid and excited and time. So i'm going for nowhere and it's like I am lot of things healing gaza. My family settles my value, my job, my career and. So to a new year, unfortunately, I don't care any any hot and what i'm going. What's the plan?

I'm surprised to hear you say you're .

excited and excited in a weed way. okay. Like I wanted to happen. And it's like when you are going to get a new day lot, you are there is a pain that you would go through IT. And I just wanted do what .

tell us like when you're getting a shot and you just wanted to be over.

Yeah exactly.

So that's not really excited. That's like dread.

I don't know .

more my language .

that sounds more .

like dread to me than excitement. Nervous, nervous. Maybe it's .

kind of you I just, I just want to with all thing before that, I did the registry ration. I was like, okay, well, you didn't think about you a lot than but since I registered, IT became like a pain that things like I just .

wanted finishes be on the other side already of whatever there is going to happen exactly.

What is this this week to be placed on a list. What is this? And you have to pay to get on the list.

why? There were, at the time, over a million people living in a city that was about to be invaded. There was one way out of gaza. I wanted to understand what was this OPEC process that user was waiting on and could barely talk about.

On a jeffrey world coming up the actual Price to get somebody of gaza. And yes, they are gonna want that in cash. No wire transfer, no credit card, no bible payment, good old fashion, cash only.

That's in a minute about a radio when our program continues. American life for ma glass today is show. We're returning to u of marsh and his family and rafa. We've been caught up in this war that began october.

Ross israel killed as two hundred, and the drag on for you in nine months now of a thirty seven thousand palestinians and over fifteen hundred israeli is dead, and people like music and the sisters trapped in middle of the fighting. And back in february, when you have decided to try to weave gaza, leave all this behind, there was hard getting everybody on board, handing off responsibility liii s but also IT was just literally hard to leave. IT was hard to get out use of his cautious when I came talking about this part of the process.

So how to to started asking around how exactly does that work? How does a person get out of gaza with clock ticking? Everybody wondering when if israel was really going to do what IT announced IT was going to do and actually invade?

Rapper, what procedure to go through? Who do you call? What form do you fill out to leave gaza? Who, you know, it's not a clean.

defensible Operation. When nobody who touches IT will talk about IT, I spoke with palestinians who went through the rough of crossing. Or we're trying to people who've reported on the system, people who work inside IT, almost everybody didn't want to talk publicly.

They all worried about pissing off the wrong people in the egyptian military and intelligence. The first detailed document I read about how the rough a crossing works was in investigation by a group of reporters at a site called the organized crime, corruption and reporting project. And even they, the people who authored the report, did not want to be named.

You can just say that a one of the O C C R P uh reporters who worked on this, on this investigation.

there were several reporters working inside and outside gaza. I'm gonna all this one. naa.

Nia explained after october seventh, when hamas attacked israel, officially palestinians in gaza with no other passport or not allowed to leave through the rough a border, israel close every other exit point. But pretty soon these ads started popping up online, offering to get people out. They are for brokers, people calling themselves travel agents or travel record meters. Nia pulled up a couple of the ads. All we are talking travel in luxury, your dignity and pride intact.

And really, I mean, it's like they're so creepy and tag at the same time. I mean, wait, i'll let me see if I can find IT. IT was very funny.

Okay, there is one called the king's coordinations. IT says the strongest cold ordination on the on the level of gaza. And then IT says, easy and guaranteed. And IT has a photo of these things and then playing over that things, and then a guy looking very modern, you know, wedding, a rock sack on his back, an orange genes. So funny.

Why is that so funny to you?

Because, I mean, the country is is, I mean, gaza is is a place of death and destruction. And this is next time, and the playing fly is over.

This things like he's going to see the pyramids with this camera around his neck .

is nothing to do with with the reality.

Every war has its own manic economy. These travel coordinators were sometimes charging two thousand, five hundred dollars per person, sometimes five thousand. Depends who you ask and when you could turn the money from your phone or hand IT to a ordinator in gaza.

As best nia and the other O C C R P reporters could find out, a lot of the money seem to go to egyptian intelligence, although egypt has publicly denied this and the Price rose over time. A few months after the war started, we called one of the workers ourselves and asked, what exactly is the Price now? And he said, sometimes at seven thousand, ten or twelve, twelve thousand dollars per person in a sounding number.

Before the war started, the average person in gaza made thirty seven hundred dollars a year. IT was very difficult for palestinians trying to leave to tell who was legit, or the Price shop people give their money to brokers who disappeared. IT was the wild west, and then the entire system changed.

Egypt controls the rap of crossing. Here are some things egypt not want. Egypt did not want israel pushing palestinians from gaza into egypt.

I didn't want a refugee crisis. IT didn't want hamas getting a foot le in egypt. Egypt also didn't want to look like IT was supporting the displacement of palestinians by facilitating their exit out of gaza.

And last egypt, finites did not want to look like IT was collaborating in a black market to charge palestinians tens of thousands of dollars to save their lives by the beginning of this year. IT did look like that. By february and march, there were reports that the main company offering, travel corporation at the rough border was making a million dollars a day of palestinians.

The manic economy was rained in new rules. No more hiring brokers in gazza to help you register to leave, no more paying by phone, no more free feral bribes at the border, there would only be one company allowed to register people to leave gaza, an egyptian company called hua, with close ties to the egyptian military and security services. And now if you wanted to register, you needed to send someone to the hoa offices in cairo in person, and not just anyone of first degree relative. And you need to pay in cash, five thousand dollars for an adult, twenty five hundred for a kid, american dollars only. It's like a dare.

How could anyone in gazp ll is off this new system for getting out of gaza kicked in just as israel announces its plans for an offensive in rafa? Just as mono told usia SHE was ready to leave a new, much more rigid system that made IT much, much harder to get out, yousif couldn't talk about how he raised that much money in dollars and get IT to the holy office in cao and how he did IT fast enough to register to get on the list in order to maybe make IT out in time. Most palestinians and gaza didn't want to talk about me of that either. So I reached a palestinian outside of gaza on the west bank OK. So.

so first we set up the golf on new page. And like, that was a whole, a whole thing, an ordeal of itself.

I knew the system was outrageous, but I didn't know. No, until I talk to busher. Bushi holiday lives in the west bank in roma. She's palestinian. Her husband's family is from gaza, and busher wanted to help them get out seven people, thirty thousand dollars, which SHE didn't have and had to fundraisers.

So I couldn't say in my girl fan me page that I lived in paleo because palestinians are not allowed to receive any fans from go for me. So and they actually mailed me and said, you know, because you're in a risky area, blab a blow like you cannot, you know? And then I had a coast sponsor with me from the us. Like, eventually I found somebody I found a of. It's got a long .

story short version SHE needed someone else to help her set up the goal funny page and the way you found that person, her brother in law is in a and the tours and knew someone in the U. S. Who could help them set up the page pretty quickly, taking a brush.

A, I got a picture that this is the kind of person you need on your team if your family has any chance of getting out. Busher is a lawyer. He speaks perfect english.

SHE works for a global ng oxfam. She's used to navigating bureaucracies in multiple languages. She's connections in countries all over the world.

To navigate this complex process. You need someone who can make things happen. You need a bushra or a usaf, apparently. You also need to know someone who's in a band.

But that was the first hurdles. And then and then IT was a hurdle to write the story, because every time you wrote the story, that has to be verified by go fun me, and then they would allow IT or not. So they weren't allowing me chanting that I would have to change.

Story didn't lie, you know, I mean, like, so we have to change the story. You say that I kind of live between europe and palestine and kind of travel for work. I do travel a lot. IT had to be we had to write the story in terms of SHE was fund raising on behalf of me that lived in europe, who was going to help my family in gaza? The girlfriend meme worked.

but IT wasn't enough. They raise ed twenty thousand dollars. They needed thirty for the halley's. Busher and her husband were already sending money constantly into gaza, money to pay for two hundred dollar bags of flower for transportation. Every time the family had to move five times. Busher knew if the family made IT to cairo, they wouldn't LED to work, so they need help paying for housing and food there too. So actually, busher realized they needed fifty thousand dollars.

So we took a long out of twenty k and then put of our savings twenty eight.

Okay.

yeah, all all my all our lives savings.

How did you guys make that decision? Was that an obvious choice?

That also was what delayed the process is like we are currently like we bought how a year ago, we're like finishing IT. So I mean, it's just been it's been a huge financial strain.

I tacked to people in gaza who sold the cars they were living in to pay for these fees. I heard about families that sold their furniture, took out loans, families who hit up aunts and cousins and extended family across multiple countries until every family member savings was drained. And once you did, that had the money in hand. IT wasn't over. The move for us, that was really complicated.

was finding was figuring out a way how to get the money in, because you have to pay cash in dollars and egypt, and in order for you to, you can send the money by bank transferred to an egypt account. IT has to be like somebody in egypt has A U. S. D. account.

And we are we. So you have to have, you have to have. You can't transfer money to an account.

No, like forty thousand dollars to egypt.

And you couldn't figure out literally just how .

to get the cash there. How do we get the forty thousand forty k in? Well, the thing is, is that I I could have gone out and taking IT, but then we found out that um IT has to be a first degree relative that registers to see what I mean.

They have to reject the family and has to be and i'm not the first degree. I'm just like the in law, like not daughter in law. So I I couldn't and then my husband palestinian men under forty years old can at to enter egypt unless you have a specific um you have to have like a permit from the egyptian authorities and secret services and they do all the security check. So that was also not an option for my, my, my husband to go. My g had to be his sister, and sweden went register .

them yeah.

So we flew her out and her, her daughters and her husband too, because he is like, too small, very small kids. So we flew them all out and there like, as the situation is not amazing in weeden, they couldn't afford like two thousand five hundred dollars for the plane ticket. So we paid for us to right now, i'm talking about one of my accounting, all of this. I'm just that I can't .

believe once the sister arrived in, caro bush then had to figure out, how do I get her the cash so he can go in person to register the family at the hello office. Blucher had a friend in egypt.

He could receive about twenty thousand in his account. And I was like, okay, all transfer twenty thousand to him and a person i'm not exactly sure and again, i'm not asked questions but he was like, I don't want to say an agent, but he was like a person that was going to egypt, businessman going to egypt, that was taking money for people, dollars to egypt. So he Carried fifteen thousand for us no way.

Yeah IT.

Basically we paid him a thousand five hundred dollars to take fifty .

dollars with and just to be like the meal, just to Carry IT basically.

Yeah, IT was risky. That was a risky move.

And did you get the sense of that person is doing that like all the time?

Yeah, but I don't think IT was for necessarily evacuating people from gaza to his a business man. He has like businesses and and cairo. So he was able to Carry he I don't know, I don't know what he does, but he's like an entrepreneur.

I have no details that I didn't part. I like, you know, you you I don't ask. I was like, cool, we got somebody my husband didn't ask.

You knew the guy. He knew the guy from a guy. So like, he was like, okay, cool. You can ask questions.

okay? So your sister in law arrives in Carol SHE goes to meet your friend who's holding twenty thousand dollars for you and the business man who has yeah personally delivered for a quite a high fee yes, another fifteen thousand dollars yeah. And all of that then SHE collects that driving around cairo. This like piles of cash.

literally. Well, yeah, I guess I mean, is that piles of cash like to be hundred and fifty hundred dollar.

not a lot of cash. I mean.

it's a it's not you can't .

put IT in a while IT.

No, you can put another one IT. I take a question. I should how SHE Carried IT, but they know. So they got an apartment write next to the to to the company.

the hoa company. The sister in lot stood in line, paid the money, and then they waited for the names of bushes in laws to show up on the list. Booster and her family were stuck checking the seam strange telegram channel use of was the one with the screen shots of this life or death list.

The wheat was excruciating. Usha didn't want to think or talk about IT her sister, I wanted to talk about IT all the time. They're all watching the news and the list. On April fourteen th, their names appeared on a list. The family left .

the next day. I mean, definitely, when their names came out on a list, IT was like a physical. There was something physical that changed in me.

What did you feel like? What did IT? What changed?

It's like it's like, okay, there's they're gonna survive. You know there's .

gonna live yeah and .

in there is no word for an english, but maybe you can look IT up in arbiter is called ahead. It's like it's like A A mix of anger and discussed. It's the word that what IT means like a mix of anger discussed and. The despair and you .

fall that IT is toward what? what?

What made you feel like? Which part? Listen, I have never, I have never met my in laws.

Never met her in laws. Because israeli restrictions make IT very hard to travel between the west back gaza. Like.

how is IT that this has happened for us, to me, and for my son, to me, his grandparents. Ts, for the first time, you know, hi, how? why? Why do we have to go through this?

What is gonna mean to your family to have spent this money on this? Like long term .

or shame, shame, shame .

with IT. why?

Because there's hamed, because that's not who we are. You know, like we've render destitute. You know like they're not destitute people. You know like they had a beautiful home and beautiful lives. And and to put that on your son, I mean and I know and of its shame, but it's .

like guilt.

Maybe it's like they're so grateful that their shamed to say that you know mean, it's embrace that. They put that on us. And so we don't talk about IT. It's not like there's thank you because even a thank you is like not enough for them. And so it's Better not to say.

IT do you wanna talk about IT?

Um no because I would do IT a million times over again and they know that I just need to know that they're alive, that they're good. And now when you know, I mean, the thing is, is that they're in the egypt, i'm in egypt now and but the road ahead is so hard and like coming here and like just in like they're not the same people. They never will be the same people. You know.

This brings us back to usaf. Usaf, who knew this? He knew leaving gaza meant he would not be the same person. And still use of was going through all these steps, through a system designed to frustrate, deter and being groped him. Useless version of this process, raising an astounding amount of money, getting the cash in dollars physically to the hello office. Use of manuvers were not the exact seme as bushes, but they were just as involved and absurd write up until he was registered in waiting for permission to do something he did not want to do.

When he was growing up, use of uncle used to tell him, he reminded him of his grandfather. He grew up hearing this a lot. The similarities ties to his grandfather.

And you have got IT. His grandfather hustled, made things happen. He was restoring ssl, but use if has been thinking about this lately. What IT meant to be like his grandfather, what else IT meant his grandfather, is the one who got everyone to jail, lia, to the refugee camp in the north of gaza, when they were all pushed out of their homes.

And what is now israel, in one thousand nine hundred forty eight, his grandfather's, the one who made sure everyone got set up in the same place next to each other, make sure they survived, had housing, had their needs met, he made sure they were safe, and they were together and they were gaBella. C camp became a small city. People move to bigger apartments nearby, had kids, but the family stayed safe and right next to each other.

Seventy five years later, Joseph was the one who moved to sisters in their families to attempt camp in rafa so they could all be nearby, safe. And together they were there for three months. When you have heard from a contact in egypt, a friend with connections of the hello company who told them that his family's names were likely to be listed in the next week, he wasn't just fAiling at keeping the family together.

He was the one who is going to let them up. You serve. Are you packing?

I don't have anything to back that. The easy .

this part, I have .

two jeans bands, two tea shed, one jack, two jacket. And actually, most of what I will leave in for my brothers in law, i'm just gonna take just what I cut wear during the way the first day, just a big jama for the next day. And that said, this is about this backing.

What's the art is part.

It's also backing tangibly. There is nothing to be backed during the journey. What we are backing our relations with our families.

Now I don't know he's gonna be that that day when we are just going out. And I don't want not really think about that moment because I don't know how he's gonna be. and. Yeah, he is gonna be difficult. I don't want to think about IT that's wait and see.

Hi you, sir. Hi, hi. How's your day band?

I don't know. That was a bit long. Again, he end up with our name listed by the egyptians across tomorrow to leave to egypt.

wow.

And I wasn't expecting that soon. Anybody looking to my sisters today? I received the news when I was with my sisters, and IT was a little difficult time to .

bear with IT. You were with your sisters when you found out the .

name will risk as they list the names, usually after temper the night night. So where they are having gift with a see like the other other of my sites he did. I have a friend who lives in egypt, and he have some access with the hello company, which is the company that we are just forward to cross to egypt.

And he told me that my name is not listed, is not gonna be listed today, so I do need to wait for the list. It's gonna be listed for tomorrow. So I decided we were having a start with my sisters.

I think that we are leaving the day after, and I just what I want to use that day with them. We agreed to have, if start together, all of us, and we are planning for tomorrow, that I even, I don't want to work, go to work when IT with my sisters, I take my family there. We spend bare day there, then we go back to prepare ourself to travel.

And suddenly, when we were there, one of us is the wife of one of our colleagues who lives with us. He called them, he said, your names are listed and was very shopping and became suddy live and became a caes start to crying and was very emotional moment that I didn't want to see. My daughter idea was crying because he answered, red a crying, my wife is crying, my mother is crying and hi. And then I found myself in this chaotic situation, trying to understand this option or not.

You you were having doubts.

you know, course I am going for nowhere, leaving behind me everything an entire life. And this is the second time I leaving things behind. I left my house in the north to at the south. I lift my, my house. My memory is that I think the north. Now I can, I, I, I am trying to understand what they imagine, how my sisters are feeling when they are losing their back up, their supporters, whether they want anything, when about they are facing anything. They know that users there.

what they say yourself, what they say to you.

Everyone, everyone was in a shock, including me. Everyone was crying. And when I was looking to my sisters, I felt that week I am to make that decision. I don't have that enough cattail to deliver things behind them. This is one of the hardest movements in my life.

yeah.

今天 睡一觉。

When I was looking for my sister, when they are thinking about losing their entire family, is not only me, it's my, my wife, my children, their mother, I couldn't find the right toward what should I say? And I shows that I was very overwhelmed the emotionally and. If I said that happened when I stop to talk to them, I was like to show how strong game and was like, fine you. I since a month and formed due to be prepared for this moment, then here, where I lost control of my emotions.

You should have that tough man was cannot. Be seen and as a weak person and I stood her week, I am. I don't wanna be shown week in front of them, but it's out of my hand. My sister, I think I believe they know, they know that I will do anything for them and whether they need use.

If you told me over the last months that every time I asked how you feel about leaving, you were sort of like, I can't I know, I know when that happens, I don't know, I can't think about IT. Do you feel like your thinking about IT now?

I was postponing yeah thinking about IT because I understood how hard that is. And I I was doing great. I was doing great today when I received the news and i'm knowing that i'm leaving tomorrow.

I I never felt the pain inside me like today. And I was right. I was right.

And now it's it's happening. And and I living, living gods works like losing my identity. When are you leaving? Leaving seven in the morning?

H, wow. You're living in six hours.

Yeah, I am leaving.

Are you gonna sleep.

I don't know if I could manage to sleep, because tomorrow morning at seven am, I have to go to meet my sisters again before we leave. Um I want to make sure even if I have one more minute to spend the two of them I do with, I don't know hanne's. I'm going through one of the most difficult it's not one of the most is the most difficult decision I made in my entire life.

I know.

Now i'm just leaving everything. Now I am leaving that would be refugee. Once I get born as a refugee, raised as a refugee, and I was starting a new life as a refugee.

Use if I I want to let you go, have time with your family, and also hopefully sleep some before you have to make that trip tomorrow.

thanks. Thank you handle. Thank you so much. yeah. Thank you. Thank you and thank. Our next goal will be from a different place.

Yeah hopefully .

to go. Okay.

right? Bye .

self by bye.

Use have left through the rough of crossing the next day. That day, his families are the world outside gaza. For the first time, the kids were amazed by the electricity in caro and the trees. Trees in gaza have been cut down now to use for fire.

When elian fmd started to tell their cousins in gaza about the watermelon they were eating in the playground, they played on use of, had to tell them to keep that kind of thing to themselves from now on, manal the children to the market and bat chocolate usaf SAT at the computer, continuing to try to make plans for his sisters, trying to figure out where were the israeli tanks now, what might their approach into raph be? What was the intensity of the bombing that day? And what did you mean where the ngos living around for yet where other people leaving was the time for his sisters to move somewhere else in gaza? Then on me, six, the israeli military sent tanks into rafa.

The invasion had finally started. That same day, there was news that hamas had agreed to a ceasefire. IT was very confusing, but for a couple hours, IT seemed like maybe there was going to be a ceasefire.

Do OK i'm with the family. 对， 是个 孩子。 Now I need， I have even to look with the process to go back together soon as they get.

And what using my take .

one to you, yeah, I am usually say, what what do you? What the news I want, I want to be me to go back together. And even with my sister, I can just put them in the garden and we keep planning in other, I don't mind.

This usaf was suddenly back to the person I remembered talking to for every other move before this last one, energize, frantic.

I started to rationally about what i'm gonna en is what i'm gonna do. And I will need the plan that I am having. Now I still get out a way how to .

come back, but that day there was no ceasefire, and the next day the israeli military seized the rough, a crossing into egypt and close the border. There was no way back. Usf would be in one world. His sisters would be back home in.

another.

Hand joy world is one of the bruises of our show. Honest story about user was edited by A R. Chesney and Nancy. Update or episode today was produced by a vivo to corn filed the people put together to the bond.

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I don't know what he does.

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