Brazilians involved in the war in the Gaza Strip managed to cross the border into Egypt

Caught at the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and waiting in agony to leave the enclave, Brazilians crossed the border into Egypt at dawn this Sunday. The group initially consisted of 34 Brazilians and their families, but at the last minute the mother and her 12-year-old daughter returned and remained in Gaza because the rest of the family could not obtain permission to leave the territory.

Brazilians, like citizens around the world and Gazans themselves, have endured weeks of terror, holed up in makeshift shelters set up by Brazilian diplomats but surrounded by danger on all sides. First, they took refuge in a Catholic school in Gaza City, which was bombed by the Israeli air force, although Brazil informed Israel that there were Brazilian civilians there, most of them children and women, and they left after the attack. in Khan Younes, a city in the south of the Gaza Strip, closer to the border with Egypt.

Settling in a house rented by the Brazilian government, the group endured unspeakably painful new days as neighboring houses were destroyed by air raids and they had to survive without drinking water, without energy and, in the last few days, without food, which each new day of the war in the Gaza Strip becomes even more meager.

After lengthy negotiations between the Brazilian government and the Egyptian, Israeli, US and Palestinian governments, as well as moments of great tension between Brazil and Tel Aviv, a group of Brazilians were finally allowed to leave the Gaza Strip last Thursday. However, problems at the border forced the group to remain near the territory’s only exit into Egypt, the Rafah checkpoint, until dawn this Sunday, when they were finally allowed to cross.

In Brasilia, the group was received on the Egyptian side by diplomats from Brazil, underwent a medical examination and will then spend a day in Egypt to get some rest and receive adequate care and food, according to Itamaraty’s Foreign Ministry. long hardships. The Brazilian President’s plane, which has been waiting for three weeks at the airport in Cairo, the capital of Egypt, will take the group to Brasilia this Monday.

Still at Brasilia airport, the combined forces of several government agencies will receive the returnees, take care of all the necessary documentation and send each of them to the cities where they have families. Those who have no one in the country will be sent to a house in the interior of Sao Paulo that usually accepts refugees until they can settle down and get on with their lives on their own.

In addition to this group of 32 people, another of about 40 people also asked the Brazilian government for support in leaving the Gaza Strip. These are Brazilians and their families who initially intended to remain in Gaza but, faced with brutal increases in violence in the enclave, changed their minds and asked for repatriation.

Since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began in early October, Brazil has repatriated more than 1,500 Brazilians from the region, 1,416 from Israel, several dozen from the West Bank, and now this new group from Gaza. Several Brazilian Air Force FAB aircraft created a veritable air bridge between Brasilia, Tel Aviv, Amman (in Jordan) and now Cairo in Egypt, and on all return flights to Brazil, doctors and military psychologists provided first aid to repatriates during the flights.