What is life like from the inside in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip? How to survive in the midst of bombardments and impossible living conditions? And how to get out? A Palestinian of Hungarian nationality, whose family was rescued from Gaza with the help of the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta, told Mandiner.

 15^th March 2025. Maráczi Tamás

 

The doctor, who has lived in Hungary for twenty years, is of Palestinian origin from Gaza and has Hungarian citizenship. After the attack of the Hamas terrorist organisation on 7th October 2023, he was faced with the prospect of his mother and two sisters being caught in the middle of the fighting as a new war broke out. He did everything he could to get help in Hungary, and in the end the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta’s local Christian contacts in Gaza were the key to the rescue mission. The three ladies managed to get out of the zone and were brought to Hungary. The Palestinian man refused to identify himself due to the sensitivity of the subject, he gave an interview to Mandiner under a pseudonym Amin and no photo was taken of him.

 

You speak good Hungarian. How long have you lived in Hungary?

I have been living in Hungary for twenty years. I arrived in 2005 on a student exchange programme, learned Hungarian and then continued my studies in Hungarian with a state scholarship.

Which settlement in the Gaza Strip is your family from?

Gaza City.

Your mother and two sisters were rescued from the Gaza Strip with the help of the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta. When and how did this happen?

 After 7th October 2023, when the war started, the bombing of the Gaza Strip started and my family managed to leave Gaza City at the last minute. They went south and came out through the settlement of Deir el-Balah, near the Egyptian border.

They escaped from the brink of death. Their lives were saved by a single day.

 What do you mean by that?

Our apartment was hit by a rocket attack, but no one was home. My younger sister had convinced my mother to go to my uncle’s place – that’s what saved their lives. However, my sister’s best friend from childhood was not so lucky, she died later with her thirty family members. And none of them were Hamas supporters.

What is left of your birthplace?

I had the house renovated just three months before the war. The ceilings were damaged, there were big holes in them, the building was damaged, the walls had collapsed, but the supporting beams remained. My brother and uncle live over there, the house is still there.

Did you try to help your mother and brothers to get out of the zone?

Of course, I did everything I could from Hungary. For four months I sent e-mails everywhere, contacted every available contact. I received a lot of help, but in the end I ran into walls everywhere and I had lost hope.

Then I got a phone call from the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta…

How did Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta get involved?

 The organisation was aware of many refugees, including my family, through local Christian contacts in Gaza. But their situation was special because there was a Hungarian element to their case: their closest relative, me, was a Hungarian citizen. The charity had also learned that I had initiated the naturalisation of my family members from here, and that governmental and non-governmental organisations were working on the case – but I was not aware of this until the last minute.

How did you get them out of the zone?

I had no control over that. What made it very difficult was that it was very tough to contact them because the internet was down and the phones were not working.

Occasionally, when they got to a place where there was a network, they could send a signal.

I found out the rest of the story afterwards. From Deir el-Balah they had to go to Rafah, then cross the border and go through the Sinai to Cairo to get to Hungary. I was told by the Charity Service that it was the joint work of the Hungarian authorities, the Hungarian Embassy in Cairo and the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta and its local network of Christian partners that made this possible.

 For two weeks they took my mother and two siblings, hand in hand, to the border, with almost a hundred transfers, then the Hungarian side made an agreement with the Israeli authorities, they were allowed to cross with individual permits, and from there they were brought to Hungary via Egypt.

How many times have you been to Gaza in the last twenty years?

You could go home when the border was opened. The first time I went home was at the end of my studies, and I went home twice between 2005 and 2012. Sometimes the border was open for a few weeks, but if I had gone home, I might not have been able to come back and I would have lost my scholarship and I would not have been able to finish my studies. I was able to go home after the war in 2021 because my father fell ill – I managed to speak to him just before he died and I was able to attend his funeral.

What were living conditions like in the Hamas-controlled zone before the war broke out in 2023?

My personal experience: I lived through the wars in Gaza City after the second intifada, between 2000 and 2005, and I saw a lot.

You get used to everything, the good and the bad. Under the circumstances, the situation was good.

Even compared to the other Palestinian territory, the West Bank?

I don’t know because I’ve only been there once in my life, for two days for a sports event. As a Gazan, you need a permit to go there, so I couldn’t go. Living and growing up in Gaza is a matter of luck.

To survive or to thrive?

Both. Luck depends on whether you get hit by a rocket or a bullet. In those years, rockets fell all the time. If you were going to school or just walking down the street, you could die at any time.

Typically, the warplanes would come at three in the morning, they wouldn’t let us sleep – so we didn’t sleep until three, we waited awake so we wouldn’t get caught in our sleep.

Not many people know what it’s like to be hit by the wind and the payload of an F-16 or F-18 fighter jet: even if it’s dropped several kilometres away, it’s like your life is being sucked out of you, your blood freezes.

You fly two metres off the ground, your heart is ripped out and for a few moments you don’t know whether you’re dead or alive.

And then everyone is crying, running around, windows are breaking, everyone is checking what injuries they have or if their neighbours are still alive.

Were you injured in the air raids?

I didn’t. The Israeli air raid practice was that after the first missile hit, they would fire at the same place with a pause: they would wait until many people had gathered at the point of impact to see if there were still people alive, and then the next missile would come at them. In one such case, seventy people died near us, including several of my classmates. Death always followed the people.

We were used to death: we could die tomorrow, we could die today. That’s how people lived.

Have there been deaths in the family other than friends?

Whose relatives have not died in Gaza? My mother’s sister’s three children were killed in the last war. They were 8, 15 and 21 years old and were playing in the yard when they were hit by a rocket. Two other cousins of mine were also killed, one of whom worked for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and was shot in the head during an organised evacuation.

How many air strikes have you seen?

Many. In those years, Fatah was still in power in Gaza and the Israeli army was bombing its headquarters and institutions in Arafat City every two days – we lived nearby and felt it. The Al-Sifa Central Hospital was also three minutes away, I spent half my childhood near the hospital.

There was a time when I found a head blown off by an explosion and took it to the hospital. Severed hands, legs, intestines – these were almost natural phenomena for me in those days. It was not by chance that I became a doctor.

What does the creation of an existence in this exclusion zone depend on? On the network or on the ability?

On whether you want it. And usually Gazans want it. There are social factors, of course, but basically it depends on what you want to achieve.

During the years you lived in Gaza, what did you miss?

Freedom. You couldn’t travel, there were restrictions everywhere. You can hardly move within 350 square kilometres. Confinement leads to frustration.

Livelihood problems?

There were, because it was a closed, prison-like area, you couldn’t make a good living.

Everyone dreamed of a better standard of living, of being able to travel wherever they wanted.

Did you always have food, basic necessities?

Yes, we did. Of course, many people still went without, and many lived on the regular financial support sent home by relatives working abroad.

How did life in Gaza change after 7 October?

It became a situation where masses of people had not seen an onion or a tomato for a year. Most people lived on canned food and so on.

Now that a large part of the population has lost their homes because of the bombing, where are people going to survive, how are they going to survive?

They are helping each other, obviously some had reserves, others got help from relatives. Regular access to food gives people a purpose. Every family in Gaza has a bag with the essentials, passports, certificates, savings – it’s prepared, and if they have to flee, everyone grabs that bag and can leave quickly. Many people try to find shelter in hospitals.

What are your family members planning to do: will they return to Gaza or will they stay abroad?

I am also planning to do the same.

So the whole family is planning to return to Gaza?

All of us.

The Hungarian government does not allow pro-Palestinian demonstrations and defines itself as an ally of Israel – the Palestinian cause is in a bad way in Hungary. Is it difficult to be Palestinian in our country today?

That is an interesting question. I could answer it in two ways. Firstly, I am proud to be Palestinian. Secondly, it is easy to be a Palestinian in Hungary, it is easy in everyday life. But on social media platforms, for example, I have been called a terrorist several times in comments, so it is difficult to be a Palestinian on a political level.

I have always felt very comfortable in Hungary, but this has changed a bit in the last year.

The original article in Hungarian can be read at Mandiner. 

The Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta has been working in the Middle East since the 1990s. More info in Hungarian