‘Voluntary’ emigration of hundreds from Gaza to Germany, France kicks off under ‘family reunification’ scheme

Hundreds of Palestinians have been allowed to emigrate from Gaza to France and Germany in recent weeks under a “family reunification scheme,” two people who emigrated and an Egyptian official briefed on the arrangements told Mada Masr. 

The number of emigration caravans and the total number of people who have left in recent weeks is not clear. However, according to the Egyptian official, 500 Palestinians were allowed to leave for Germany in recent weeks. One of the Palestinians who was part of a caravan that left Gaza in the early hours of Thursday on their way to Jordan, where she is now waiting to board a flight to France, said there were over 100 people in her group. 

The two sources who left Gaza told Mada Masr that their paths differed, but both trips were directly coordinated by German and French officials.

The source who left for Germany last week said he had received a call two days before his departure from the German Embassy in Israel asking him to prepare to leave. On the day of his departure, he received a call from the Red Cross, which transported him and others in their vehicles to the Karam Abu Salem border crossing along Gaza’s southern border. From there, the group was transported by bus to the Israeli Ramon Airport, where they left for Germany.

The source said that his brother, who lives in Germany, had put in a petition for family reunification.

The source who left for France on Thursday morning told Mada Masr that she had also passed through the Karam Abu Salem crossing but was then taken by bus to Jordan, where she is to board a plane to France in the coming days. She similarly said she was allowed to travel via a family reunification scheme, as her daughter, who lives in France, had made a petition. 

The source who left for France was given a detailed flyer explaining the travel procedure.

“You will board a bus toward Jordan. The trip will take a few hours. There will be no stops until you reach Jordanian territories. At the border crossing with Jordan, on Allenby Bridge, a security search will take place. You will have to present the document that has the visa. If you have a Palestinian ID card, you will need to present it as well. Once you cross into Jordan, the French embassy will receive you, and a medical team will be present on site,” the flyer reads. “You will stay in a hotel in Amman before you board your flight to France. You will not incur any costs. It is essential that you keep your travel documents and crossing approval on you at all times, including when you arrive in France.”

Mada Masr called the number provided on the flyer on Thursday but no one answered. 

How many people will leave Gaza via the family reunification scheme is not yet clear. But two other people in Gaza told Mada Masr that they had received messages offering similar emigration arrangements. 

One source who spoke to Mada Masr on the condition of anonymity said he had received a message about five days ago offering him and his family the opportunity to leave the strip. He was asked to head to the Netsarim corridor — an area that Israeli troops bulldozed into the center of the strip and subsequently heavily militarized, and that extends from Israeli-held land outside Gaza to the coast — and meet with officials who can facilitate the departure procedures.

He explained that although he is considering emigrating, he is wary of going to the Netsarim corridor as it is considered an extremely dangerous area where Palestinians have been known to get killed, tortured and kidnapped. He pointed out that the message did not provide any guarantees of safety at the notorious site.

Another source, who received a similar message, said he was seriously considering emigrating, given that the situation in the Gaza Strip has become unbearable and he had lost many members of his family. He indicated that he was still considering going for a personal interview at the Netsarim corridor but had not yet made a decision. 

The first source said that his fears also have to do with Hamas's threats to people who interact with these messages.

On Monday, Hamas released a statement decrying talk of emigration caravans. 

“We warn our great Palestinian people of the danger in heeding this toxic propaganda which serves a clear Zionist strategy that the Occupation has been dreaming of for decades — to empty the land of its original Palestinian inhabitants and fulfill the Israeli dream,” the statement read. “We also warn against sharing suspicious phone numbers and information being circulated as part of these campaigns. We urge citizens to exercise utmost caution and remain highly vigilant, as some of these numbers are being used as tools for recruitment and security communication, with the aim of compromising Palestinian youth after the Occupation failed to penetrate our resistant national fabric.”

In recent weeks, Hamas has tried to quell growing war-induced unrest, which manifested in popular anti-Hamas protests last month. 

The group is also under increasing pressure to accept a deal that would see it disarm and accept forced exile, a condition it has vehemently opposed. Egypt and Qatari mediators have tried to find a middle ground between the maximalist Israeli demands and something more palatable to the resistance group, but Israel and the United Arab Emirates, which has worked closely with Israel to undermine more moderate solutions to end the war and prevent mass forced displacement, have staunchly refused.

The emigration scheme comes a year and a half into Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza — an onslaught marked by repeated expressions of intent by Israeli officials to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza and unrelenting military operations that have seen Israel target and kill journalists and civilians en masse and destroy nearly all of the strip’s infrastructure. In a conservative estimate of the death toll, given the number of people still missing and Israel’s ongoing targeting of civil defense teams, 51,355 people have been killed since the beginning of the war, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.

The most recent and full-throated version of these remarks came from Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich who announced in March that the Israeli government plans to set up a “migration directorate” to implement United States President Donald Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and resettle them elsewhere.

“This plan is taking shape, with ongoing actions in coordination with the [US] administration,” Smotrich told members of Knesset’s Land of Israel caucus, which advocates for illegal Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories.

“We are establishing a Migration Directorate. We are preparing for this thing, headed by the prime minister and the defense minister. The budget won’t be an obstacle for this,” Smotrich said. “Just to give you an idea: if we remove 10,000 people a day, seven days a week, it will take six months. If we remove 5,000 people a day, it will take a year. Of course, this is assuming we have countries willing to take them, but these are very, very, very long processes.” 

According to an Egyptian official informed of the family reunification plan, several European countries have agreed to take in “thousands of Palestinians” from Gaza at the US’s behest. 

In March, Mada Masr spoke to a range of officials about efforts to counter the US-led forced displacement plan. A European diplomat in touch with regional capitals said at the time that parts of the Trump plan will ultimately have to be incorporated into the Egyptian proposal. “Inevitably, some people will be leaving Gaza,” they said.

The European diplomat and multiple Egyptian sources in the corridors of political power in Egypt then acknowledged that regional countries could use a workaround that would entail “voluntary family reunification” operations for residents of the strip who have relatives outside of Gaza. In the end, Palestinians who wish to leave Gaza should be given the opportunity to do so, the sources argued, especially if there are countries willing to host them and grant them citizenship or long-term residence, and provided the Gulf is prepared to financially back the process and the plan doesn’t lead to a complete Palestinian exodus from the strip.