In 2023, Ahmed Mahfouz Sediq, a 41-year-old bus driver from Beni Suef Governorate in Egypt, met a Palestinian woman living in Gaza through the internet. After meeting some of her relatives in Egypt, he proposed and married her through an official power of attorney. He then traveled to Gaza in April of the same year to attend their wedding ceremony in Deir al-Balah, located in the central governorate of Gaza. The couple lived together for a few months, planning to move to Egypt in November. However, the genocide that broke out on October 7 shattered their plans.
The couple soon lost the rented apartment they had been living in and were forced to move in with her relatives, in a house that now shelters more than 100 family members.
Ahmed and his Palestinian wife now live under constant threat of death from Israeli airstrikes and shelling. The neighborhood where they are staying with her family has been bombed ten times in just one year—the latest of which was last Thursday. Repeated strikes have severely damaged the house, shattering all its windows and blowing out the metal frames. They have had no choice but to cover the openings with curtains and plastic sheets in an attempt to block the cold wind, which has made their eight-month-old daughter Sham ill. The parents have been unable to find medicine for her due to the closed crossings and the renewed war.
At the start of the war, Ahmed and his wife, like other Palestinians and Egyptians trapped in Gaza, suffered from famine. Although the situation briefly improved with the entry of humanitarian aid—which allowed them to obtain food coupons—the resumption of hostilities has made even basic food scarce. During Ramadan, they survived on meager portions of fava beans, lentils, or a small can of cheese. Now, they have nothing but a handful of donated flour received during the ceasefire. The wife bakes bread over a wood fire, as fuel is unavailable, and the family uses solar power to charge mobile phones and provide minimal lighting at night.
Ahmed told Zawia3: “I appeal to the Egyptian president and government to rescue us from this hell. We are at risk of death. If I die here, I beg you to send my body back to my homeland—I don’t want to be buried here. I saw with my own eyes the scattered human remains and torn flesh in a school that was bombed near us. Many of our neighbors were killed when their homes were shelled. A child, a relative of my wife, was hit by shrapnel in the leg while standing right next to me in the street. We fight each other here just to get clean water from a truck, and we survive on chard and mallow plants. There’s no medicine. I suffer from severe kidney pain due to the contaminated drinking water, and I couldn’t find any treatment at Nasser Medical Complex.”
He continued: “I’m not the only Egyptian here. I have two Egyptian friends. One is Mahmoud Gamal from Al-Hawamdiya, who lives in Deir al-Balah and is married to a Palestinian woman. The other is Mohamed El-Sweisy from Suez, also married to a Palestinian and currently in northern Gaza. All of us have lost our sources of income. I’m a simple man with a bachelor’s degree in social work. In Egypt, I worked as a bus driver. I can’t even afford the coordination fees to cross Rafah. I’m here with my Palestinian wife and my infant daughter Sham, and I fear for her life—I want to save her.”
Ahmed appealed to the Egyptian authorities to evacuate the stranded Egyptians, their wives, and children—just as other Arab and foreign countries had coordinated the departure of their citizens and Palestinians with residency through the Rafah crossing last year.
In 2021, Egyptian writer and poet Mohamed Saad Nasr El-Azab, a 46-year-old from Damietta Governorate, married a Palestinian woman from the Gaza Strip. She moved to live with him in Damietta, and when they began the legal process to obtain Egyptian residency for his wife, they were asked to provide official documents from the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. The couple decided to travel to Gaza in March 2023 and stayed with her family in the Tel Al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City. They then registered their names for travel through the Rafah crossing and waited for them to appear on the departure lists. However, the genocide that erupted on October 7 left them stranded. They were unable to leave Gaza City due to intense shelling and the extreme danger of traveling toward the central governorate, as Israeli forces were cutting off the road and opening fire on displaced people.
As the shelling intensified in their neighborhood, they were forced to flee with her family to the Al-Sahaba area, then to Al-Sabra, and eventually to Al-Zeitoun—marking their fourth displacement since the war began. Nearly a year into the conflict, Mohamed met a large number of stranded Egyptians and dual nationals—Palestinians holding Egyptian passports—as well as Palestinian women married to Egyptians and their children, all seeking to leave Gaza and return to Egypt. In response, he launched an initiative appealing to the Egyptian authorities to evacuate their nationals and protect them from extermination. As part of the effort, he helped organize three protest gatherings: one at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, another at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah (central Gaza), and a third at Ramzoun Al-Saraya in northern Gaza.
Speaking to Zawia3, he said: “I’m fully Egyptian. I have a national ID card. As soon as the war began, my brother rushed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to seek help. Officials there asked him to leave my name, contact details, and personal information—but no one has contacted me. Neither my name nor my wife’s ever appeared on the travel lists, despite my brother visiting the ministry multiple times and my continuous pleas on social media for over a year.”
He added: “Between 200 and 300 stranded Egyptians and Egyptian passport-holding Palestinians joined the protests we organized. Nearly a thousand Egyptians have contacted me, all asking President El-Sisi and the Egyptian government to rescue them. We are currently compiling a list of names to submit to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I honestly don’t know the total number of naturalized Palestinians who now hold Egyptian citizenship.”
There are no official or unofficial estimates of how many Egyptian citizens remain trapped in the Gaza Strip since the war broke out on October 7. However, Zawia3 has obtained a recent list containing the names and details of 229 individuals currently stranded in Gaza. Among them are 213 Egyptian nationals with official ID cards, and 16 others who include Palestinian wives of Egyptians and children of Egyptian fathers who have not yet obtained Egyptian citizenship. The list includes about 90 women and girls, as well as at least nine children—four of them infants. According to our sources, the total number of those seeking to return to Egypt exceeds one thousand people.
Back in 2015, the number of Egyptians residing in Gaza was estimated at around 40,000, based on unofficial figures. The roots of this community trace back to the 19th century, when Egyptians migrated to the region for trade and work following the French occupation of Egypt. Some were also part of Mohamed Ali Pasha’s military campaign to liberate Jaffa from Ottoman control in 1831.
Dual Nationals and the Wives of Egyptians
Like many holders of Egyptian passports in the Gaza Strip, Khaled Awkal was born to a Palestinian father and an Egyptian mother, through whom he acquired Egyptian citizenship several years ago. He also married an Egyptian woman and had Egyptian children, but the family had long resided in Gaza, enduring multiple past Israeli offensives on the territory—such as Operation Cast Lead, Pillar of Defense, and Protective Edge. During those previous wars, Egyptian authorities would typically facilitate the evacuation of Egyptian nationals through the Rafah border crossing.
Speaking to Zawia3, Khaled said: “In the wars of 2008, 2012, 2014, 2019, and 2021, the Egyptian government would call on its citizens in Gaza to head to the Rafah crossing within the first three days of fighting. I used to take my wife and children to Egypt, carrying our official Egyptian documents. But in this genocide we’re currently experiencing, all other Arab and foreign nationals were evacuated from Gaza—except for the Egyptians. We were shocked to find that an unknown company—no one knows what authority it represents—was demanding $5,000 per person as a coordination fee for passage through Rafah. This left thousands of Egyptians trapped in the war zone, while only the wealthy could leave. Most people in Gaza are poor.”
Khaled recounted that, at the start of the war, he was forced to flee Gaza with his wife and two of his children, leaving behind two others, one of whom has a wife and child—all of them Egyptian citizens. He said they simply couldn’t afford the coordination fees. “We, the stranded, were pushed to the brink and had to organize protest sit-ins to appeal to Egyptian authorities for help—despite the risk of being targeted by Israeli airstrikes due to our public gatherings. What shocked us even more was the wave of online attacks by Egyptians accusing us of obtaining fake citizenships under former President Mohamed Morsi, or calling us spies—completely unaware of our real situation,” he said.
In 2021, 35-year-old Palestinian woman Yosra Ahmed (a pseudonym) married an Egyptian man and moved to Old Damietta to live with him. In 2023, she began to miss her family and decided to visit Gaza via the Rafah crossing. She had planned to return to Egypt on October 7—but the outbreak of war disrupted her travel, leaving her stranded. In the chaos, she lost the baby she and her husband had been expecting, as well as her brother and several other relatives who were killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Her husband and mother-in-law contacted the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, doing everything they could to bring her back. When her name finally appeared on the list of those allowed to leave via Rafah, the family was shocked to discover that she was required to pay a $10,000 coordination fee—because Yosra is not an Egyptian citizen. She was unable to pay and was left behind, facing the unknown alongside her surviving relatives, struggling with repeated displacement and the threat of death by hunger or bombing.
Speaking to Zawia3, she said: “My husband is a daily-wage laborer. How could he afford such an amount? There are many Palestinian wives of Egyptians in the same situation, and many Egyptians who came before the war for family visits and couldn’t leave because they didn’t have the $650 coordination fee per person, which later rose to $1,000. We are now being exploited by so-called humanitarian organizations in Gaza that demand between $2,000 and $3,000 for assistance. Some even cooperate with the occupation, forcing those who want to leave to renounce their Palestinian nationality and property and sign pledges never to return.”
She added: “Many stranded Egyptians, their wives, and their children are scattered across Khan Younis, Deir al-Balah, and northern Gaza. All of them are appealing to Egyptian authorities to save their lives and evacuate them from the Strip. This is why we organized three protest sit-ins—at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah (central Gaza), and Ramzoun al-Saraya in the north.”
Yosra also shared heartbreaking scenes she witnessed. One Egyptian mother and her children were allowed to leave via Rafah early in the war, but were forced to leave behind their 16-year-old son because they couldn’t pay the coordination fee for him. He remained trapped alone in Gaza. In another case, an elderly Egyptian woman arrived in Gaza with her husband and sons before the war to visit her daughter, who was married to a Palestinian. During the war, her husband and all her sons were killed in Israeli airstrikes. Only she and her granddaughter survived and now roam from shelter to shelter under dire humanitarian conditions.
Dozens of Egyptian nationals, along with the Palestinian wives and children of Egyptians, took part in the three coordinated protest sit-ins on Thursday at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, and Ramzoun al-Saraya in northern Gaza. They appealed to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and the Egyptian government for immediate intervention to evacuate them from Gaza and reunite them with their families in Egypt.
Hopes for evacuation were revived after media outlets reported a possible Egyptian proposal to halt the Israeli war on Gaza. The plan includes the release of eight hostages in exchange for a ceasefire of up to 50 days, during which Cairo would host a Hamas delegation to negotiate a permanent truce.
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Israeli Obstinance Blocks Family Reunification
Ambassador Rakha Ahmed Hassan, former Assistant Foreign Minister and a member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, told Zawia3 that the primary obstacle preventing the return of stranded Egyptians in Gaza is the Israeli occupation, which has imposed severe restrictions on exit from the Strip. Israel demands that anyone who leaves Gaza must not return—not even the wounded evacuated for medical treatment. Only a limited number were allowed to leave through the Rafah crossing during the initial ceasefire of the current war.
He added that a second barrier preventing the return of Egyptian passport holders is their family ties to Palestinians—most have spouses and children who are not Egyptian citizens and wish to leave Gaza together to reunite in Egypt. He also noted that Israel’s destruction of the Rafah border crossing on the Palestinian side has made it impossible for anyone to leave, including Egyptian nationals, as it remains the only accessible exit. Egypt, he explained, has been working to mediate a ceasefire, reopen the crossing for aid and medical evacuations, reunite split families, and repatriate the stranded—including Palestinians with foreign residency.
Ambassador Hassan also stated that after the first phase of the second ceasefire agreement took effect, Egypt prioritized regaining control of Rafah. However, the chance to evacuate stranded Egyptians and reunite war-torn families never materialized due to Israel’s racist intransigence and Egypt’s firm opposition to the forced displacement of Gaza’s population. Most of those who left the Strip in the early days of the war were foreign nationals without family ties to Palestinians.
He acknowledged that there had been talk of middlemen charging Palestinian travelers for coordination fees and of a company collecting such fees at Rafah. However, no official statement has confirmed or denied these reports.
A Highly Sensitive and Complex Situation
MP Ghada Ajami, member of the Egyptian Parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee, told Zawia3 that Egypt has not abandoned its citizens. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she said, is closely following the file of stranded Egyptians in Gaza, with Foreign Minister Badr Abdel Aaty personally overseeing the matter. She stressed the extreme sensitivity and complexity of the situation in Gaza, and acknowledged the lack of accurate estimates regarding the number of Egyptian citizens still trapped there.
Ambassador Gamal Bayoumi, also a former Assistant Foreign Minister, described the issue as purely consular, caused by the closed borders and ongoing Israeli assault. In remarks to Zawia3, he insisted that Egypt will not forsake its citizens and that the crisis will be resolved sooner or later—but patience is needed in the context of war. He doubted that Israel intentionally barred Egyptian passport holders from crossing Rafah in the early days, though it later destroyed the crossing in its push to forcibly displace Gaza’s population.
Zawia3 attempted to contact Foreign Minister Badr Abdel Aaty and ministry spokesperson Ambassador Tamim Khalaf for comment on the continued crisis of stranded Egyptians in Gaza, but received no response.
In November 2023, Egyptian authorities succeeded in repatriating 100 of their citizens from Gaza. In December, the Foreign Ministry launched an online registration platform to assist Egyptians trapped in Gaza and facilitate their return, along with their families. At the time, ministry spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid promised to compile detailed lists for delivery to both Egyptian and Palestinian officials at Rafah to ensure a secure and legal crossing. He emphasized that this was the only legitimate method for return and warned against falling victim to scams or unofficial intermediaries exploiting the dire circumstances.
Also in December, the former Foreign Ministry spokesperson revealed that Egypt’s representative office in Ramallah, in cooperation with the ministry’s consular sector, had been receiving names and documents of citizens wishing to return. Lists were being compiled at the Egyptian Embassy in Ramallah to be forwarded to Rafah officials to facilitate crossings.
However, these efforts brought back only a limited number of Egyptians before Israel completely destroyed the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing in June 2024, crushing hopes of further evacuations. Optimism returned briefly following a ceasefire and prisoner-exchange agreement between Israel and Hamas on January 15, 2025, which took effect on January 19. But those hopes were dashed once again when the truce collapsed and the genocide resumed.
A Policy of Intransigence Toward Gaza
Human rights lawyer Haitham Mohamedein argued that the Egyptian Foreign Ministry’s handling of the Gaza crisis is consistent with its broader approach to the rights of Egyptians abroad—and with Egypt’s rigid policy toward the Gaza Strip, which may stem from perceived security concerns. He pointed out that during the initial stages of the war, dual nationals holding American or other foreign passports were allowed to exit via a designated humanitarian corridor to Rafah—while Egyptian passport holders were denied the same.
Speaking to Zawia3, Mohamedein affirmed that all Egyptians, including dual nationals, have the right to return to Egypt. He highlighted widespread reports that certain companies have imposed exorbitant coordination fees for Rafah crossings, making it nearly impossible for lower-income Egyptians and their families to afford departure.
Following the launch of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood by Palestinian resistance factions on October 7, 2023, Egyptian authorities successfully evacuated 30 Egyptian-Canadian dual nationals who had been visiting the occupied Palestinian territories for religious purposes. At the time, Minister of State for Emigration Soha Gendy stated that she was in touch with Egyptian Ambassador to Palestine Ihab Suleiman, who assured her that Egyptians in Gaza were safe—despite the killing of two Egyptian sisters, Haya Khalil and Howaida Khalil from Port Said, in an Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian home.
The stories of Egyptian nationals and their families caught in Gaza’s genocide over the past year and a half share striking similarities. Whether they hold national ID cards and Egyptian birth certificates, or are Palestinians who acquired Egyptian citizenship through marriage and family ties, or are the wives and children of Egyptians still awaiting citizenship, they all share the same struggle for survival amid airstrikes, repeated displacement, and life in tents or partially destroyed buildings. With severe shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, their collective hope remains the same: to return to Egypt, and for the Egyptian president and government to step in and save their lives.
