Palestinians with Spanish passports will begin being evacuated from Gaza this Monday

A first group of Palestinian-Spaniards stuck in Gaza is expected to leave the Gaza Strip this Monday. A total of 41 people will be able to cross the Rafah crossing, south, towards Cairo, according to the list agreed by Israeli and Egyptian authorities to which this newspaper had access. The remaining members of Gaza’s Spanish community, some 140 people who could reach 190, including their immediate family members, are expected to leave the Gaza Strip in groups in the coming days.

Until now, Spanish citizens of Gaza were not included in the lists of people holding foreign passports who could gradually leave this territory since last November 1, which had caused disappointment and anguish among families.

In five weeks of offensive, more than 11,000 Palestinians have died under Israeli bombs in Gaza, including 4,000 minors, according to figures from local health services. Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles expressed this week her “enormous concern” about the “very difficult” conditions experienced by Spaniards in Gaza. In addition to living under constant bombardment, residents of the Gaza Strip have less food and water every day, telephone connections are very precarious and the electricity was cut off weeks ago.

The vast majority of Spaniards in Gaza and their families are already in the central or southern part of the Gaza Strip, that is, relatively close to the Rafah crossing. The Foreign Ministry has prepared a reception team at the Spanish embassy in Cairo and the air force plans to send an Airbus 330 to collect them once everyone has left Gaza.

So far, two Spanish citizens, Raúl Incertis, of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), and Jesús Sánchez, an employee of a United Nations agency, have managed to leave Gaza since October 7. Since that day, Israel has responded to an unexpected and bloody incursion by Hamas militiamen on its territory, which left some 1,200 dead and some 240 hostages at the hands of the Islamist group, which has ruled de facto in Gaza since 2007.