Raed Belal has spent two years stranded in Egypt, watching from afar as his wife and children in Gaza endured bombardment, displacement and hunger—conditions he said he is now trying to leave behind with the possibility of a reopening of the Rafah crossing. In an apartment he rents in the Egyptian village of Badrashin, the 51-year-old said he has packed his suitcases and bought gifts for his children as he waited for permission to return to Gaza.
Belal said the reopening is the moment he has been waiting for, even if his home and homeland are “destroyed,” describing it as the chance to reunite with his children and return. Belal, who left Gaza for back pain treatment three months before the war began, has been one of tens of thousands of Palestinians seeking a way back despite extensive damage in Gaza, where fighting has persisted since Israel began its campaign against Hamas after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel.
Israel’s preparation for the Rafah reopening was described by Netanyahu as a “limited opening,” with an expectation the crossing would resume within days. Netanyahu said 50 Palestinians a day would be allowed into Gaza and that Israel would keep tight control over who enters, subject to security inspections, compared with “several hundred” people a day who entered Gaza from Egypt before the war.
Even if Rafah opens, Palestinians may still face long waits to travel, officials and residents said, and the process is also expected to affect medical evacuations. The article said about 30,000 Palestinians have registered with the Palestinian Embassy in Egypt to return to Gaza, based on an embassy official who spoke on condition of anonymity because details remained under discussion.
In parallel, Palestinians hope reopening Rafah would increase the pace of medical evacuations out of Gaza. The article said the Gaza Health Ministry estimates about 20,000 Palestinians need urgent treatment abroad for war wounds or chronic medical conditions, while U.N. figures described a low rate throughout the war with an average of only 25 medical evacuations a week since the October ceasefire.
Hamas and Palestinian officials signaled different expectations for how the crossing should operate. Hamas said in a statement Monday that it called on Israel to open Rafah “in both directions” “without restrictions,” while Ali Shaath, head of a new Palestinian committee administering Gaza’s daily affairs, said last week that the crossing would be opened this week to facilitate movement into and out of the territory.
For Belal, the hope of a return is braided with a record of family trauma he says he has tried to track from a distance. He said he owned a mobile phone store in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza and left the territory in July 2023 for treatment, and that after Hamas’s attack and Israel’s bombardment began, Gaza’s borders slammed shut and his family was cut off.
Belal said he received a video call early in the war from his sons as they rushed to move merchandise out of their shop after an Israeli military warning that the building was about to be bombed. He said the strike demolished the building and that his 15-year-old son Younis was wounded in the back; Belal said doctors initially feared he might be paralyzed but that after months of treatment Younis regained the ability to walk.
As the war intensified, Belal said his wife and five children were displaced 12 times, moving from place to place and sometimes losing contact with him because of communication blackouts. He said their shelters included a nearby Indonesian Hospital before Israeli forces besieged and raided the facility in November 2023, forcing another flight, and later a school-turned-shelter in Khan Younis before further movement after Israeli forces invaded that area.
Belal recounted further losses and near-misses, including the death of his brother Mohammed and his 2-year-old child in a bombing of the school where they were sheltering in the Shati Refugee camp in northern Gaza in mid-2025. He also said that last year he received a phone call from Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital telling him his son Younis had been killed, with a photo of someone who appeared to be Younis, and that it was only after a day of uncertainty that he learned the body shown was a case of mistaken identity.
Now, Belal said his wife and children shelter in a tent in Gaza City and depend on charity kitchens for food. He said he has been sending money when he can, but that his savings have nearly run out and his wife, Asmahan, told the AP they have borrowed money from others to get by; she said she is “mentally exhausted” and that the responsibility and strain have left them “humiliated and degraded.”
Asmahan said she is waiting for God willing that the crossing opens, that her husband returns, and that they are reunited. Belal said his children, when they heard news of Rafah’s opening, believe it could happen “tomorrow,” though he said it may still take months before he can present the gifts he has bought—shoes and clothes for his teenage sons and makeup and perfume requested by his 8-year-old daughter.
He added that while he waits in Egypt, other family members are also preparing to return. The article said his brother Jaber left Gaza on Oct. 1, 2023, seeking work in the West Bank, and that after Israel imposed restrictions following the war’s start, Jaber said life became impossible there; he later joined Belal in Egypt in February and married in June, and said he has registered to return with his wife, calling Gaza “our land” and saying they will rebuild even if their home is destroyed.