An Irish citizen trapped in Gaza with his wife and their three young children has described their situation as “very difficult, stressful and depressing”.
Ibrahim Alagha (38), who is currently based in the south of the Gaza Strip, said his children aged eight, four and three, are “always asking for food or water that we don’t have”.
Mr Alagha moved to Ireland 15 years ago and had been working as an electronic engineer, living with his wife and children in Blanchardstown. He and his family came to Gaza in June on an extended holiday to visit relatives.
They fled their apartment in Gaza city last month to move in with his parents in the city of Khan Yunis in the southern end of the Gaza Strip. They are now among 90 people living in his father’s farmhouse and medical clinic.
“My apartment in Gaza was targeted, the whole building was just bombed down,” Mr Alagha told The Irish Times on Monday.
“Where I am right now, it’s not safe, there’s a lot of bombing happening . . . there is a severe shortage of food and water and power supply, even blankets, pillows. The situation is extremely difficult . . . We have nearly nothing, close to nothing.”
He said they have no electricity and currently rely on a solar power system to charge their mobile phones.
“We are always worried. We are trying to have a single meal a day,” he added. “Our meals are extremely simple, sometimes it’s just plain bread, maybe top it up with some biscuits later on in the day.”
Around 40 Irish passport holders remain in the Gaza Strip. The Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed last week that no Irish citizens had been included on the lists of international citizens permitted to leave through the Rafah crossing to Egypt.
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Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin said on Sunday there was “no evidence” that Ireland’s political stance was a factor in the difficulties it was encountering getting its citizens out of the territory.
“We’ve been working with Israeli authorities,” Mr Martin said. “We’re not on the list, we weren’t on the list in the last number of days. That’s just a fact. But we will work on a continuing basis to get our citizens out.”
Mr Alagha said he is in daily contact with the Department of Foreign Affairs but does not know why Irish passport holders have not been included on the lists of nationalities to be evacuated from the region to date.
“The US, UK, nearly all [citizens of] European countries have been evacuated. Irish were left out. Then the border closed . . . lists stop being published,” he said.
“Everything has stalled since, what I really fear now is that with all, let’s say the powerful or western countries have been evacuated, that no one is in the position now to put the pressure to try and open the border. I’m very hopeless that it’s going to reopen again.”
He added: “All of the people that do have influence don’t have any interest now.”
Mr Alagha said his eldest son, Sami, understands what is happening and becomes very scared, “especially at night” while he misses his life in Ireland.
“They [the younger children] don’t really understand what’s going on but they get really scared whenever they hear a bombing,” he said.
“We try to calm them down, tell them it’s only fireworks, try to laugh with them once the explosion happens just to get them out of the bad mood. It depends on how big the explosion was, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”
The Department of Foreign Affairs said on Monday there are an estimated 8,000 foreign and dual nationals and immediate dependents in Gaza who are seeking to leave.
“The evacuations are being managed country by country on a phased basis. It will take some time for this process to be completed,” a DFA spokeswoman said.
“The names of all Irish citizens in Gaza who have asked to be included on the list of those to be evacuated have been submitted to the relevant authorities. There have been no evacuations of foreign nationals from Gaza over the weekend. Our embassies in Cairo and Tel Aviv are in regular communication with the authorities in Egypt and Israel in this regard.”
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