German citizens stuck in the Gaza Strip since Israel sealed off the coastal area following bloody Hamas attacks on October 7 have said their government is not doing enough to help them leave.
“Nothing is happening, enquiries to the embassy go unanswered,” Mazen Eldanaf told dpa from Gaza.
Eldanaf has been living in the western German city of Bonn for 43 years with his wife and recently travelled to Gaza for one week to visit family there.
He had seen hundreds of foreign citizens leave Gaza over the past few days – but hardly any Germans. “I’m just disappointed in our government,” he said.
He and his family are deeply rooted in Germany, he said. “We have businesses, employees, pay taxes, vote, but when it comes to our salvation: nothing,” said Eldanaf.
His four adult children in Germany were also getting nowhere in their appeals for help, he added, nobody was listening to them.
Jamal Abdel Latif, 75, has also been waiting in vain to hear from the German diplomatic mission in Ramallah, in the West Bank. He fled his home in Gaza City with his wife and two children, and the family are now staying with relatives in the city of Dir Al-Bala in southern Gaza.
“Only temporarily,” said Latif. He is determined to leave Gaza. “As soon as our names are on the list, we’ll make our way to the border crossing.”
“Answering an email can’t be too much to ask in a situation like this,” said Latif, who studied at the Technical University in Berlin in the 1980s and is now seeking to leave Gaza with his wife and two children.
He said the only thing he has heard from officials so far is: “We have warned people not to travel to the area.”
Latif described the journey south as very dangerous but said that it hasn’t brought them to safety from continued Israeli airstrikes.
“The Israelis said, flee to the south, we fled to the south and what happens, they keep bombing here,” said Latif.
He does not know what will happen next for him and his family. “Going back to Gaza would be our death sentence,” said Latif, who said he’s unsure if his home is still standing.
Even the south feels incredibly dangerous, he said. A few days ago, he said, his niece’s 10-year-old son was killed after going to a shop in a high-rise building to charge his cellphone. An Israeli bomb hit the tower block, which collapsed.
“My niece’s son was just gone, just gone, all the people in the building, just gone.”
The Foreign Office in Berlin said it was working “intensively” on facilitating German nationals to leave Gaza.
On Friday, a larger group of foreign nationals was able to leave the war zone for the first time. According to the Foreign Office, more than 30 German citizens left Gaza via the Rafah border crossing.
“We are continuing our efforts and are working intensively to ensure that more Germans can leave the country,” the statement continued.
Israel declared its plans to wipe out Gaza’s rulers – the Palestinian extremist organization Hamas – after its militants went on a brutal rampage through Israeli towns bordering Gaza, killing 1,400 people and taking 249 others hostage on October 7.
Israel subsequently launched a heavy air bombardment of the coastal strip and began advancing into Gaza on the ground.
The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says more than 9,200 people have died in Gaza since the war started.
Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization by Israel, the European Union, and the United States.
