A rising number of Gazans, seeking better lives abroad, are drowning at sea. The territory’s youth unemployment rate is over 60%. A report issued in November by the Council on International Relations-Palestine, a Hamas-affiliated think tank, said 60,000 young people have left Gaza in recent years.
Distraught families blamed Hamas for contributing to the collapse and chaos of Gazan life and accused the group of nepotism and corruption.
27-year-old Khaled Shurrab was the latest victim after making it to Turkey, where he set out on a treacherous sea voyage to Greece last October and the boat went down. His body disappeared not to be recovered in the Aegean Sea. Some who leave seek job opportunities in wealthy Gulf Arab states. Many, like Shurrab, fly to Turkey and attempt the perilous sea voyage to Europe in hopes of getting asylum. Two shipwrecks in October alone made 2022 the deadliest at sea for Gazan migrants in eight years, according to rights groups. Shurrab is among 360 Gazans who have drowned or disappeared at sea since 2014,
“I blame the rulers here, the government of Gaza,” said Shurrab’s mother, Um Mohammed, from her home in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis. “They live in luxury while our children eat dirt, migrate and die abroad.”
Public outrage erupted last month at a mass funeral for young Gazans who drowned en route to Europe. Mourners shouted the names of leaders including Haniyeh and Yehiyeh Sinwar, Hamas’ current leader in Gaza, and chanted, “People are the victims!”
Atef Adwan, a Hamas lawmaker, recently denounced those who attempt to flee to Europe as making a perverse pilgrimage to a land of “deterioration and regression.”
While local residents endure daily blackouts and routine shortages of basic goods, senior Hamas officials have quietly re-located to up-market hotels in Beirut, Doha and Istanbul, stirring resentment among residents who see them as leading luxurious lives abroad while the economy collapses at home and 2.3 million Gazans remain effectively trapped in the tiny territory.
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh relocated to Qatar with his wife and several children in 2019.
Political leader Fathi Hamad moved to Istanbul a year ago and frequently flies to Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, where media reports have shown him in meetings at a five-star hotel.
Deputy leader Khalil al-Hayya also relocated to Turkey last year. Since then, he has paid only two short visits to Gaza.
Former government spokesman Taher Nounou and leader Ibrahim Salah moved to Doha, the Qatari capital.
Senior member Salah al-Bardawil, spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri and dozens of aides also have resettled in Doha, Istanbul, or Beirut, according to Hamas media reports and official statements. Several children of Hamas leaders are running lucrative real estate businesses for their parents in Istanbul.
Azmi Keshawi, Gaza analyst at the International Crisis Group, said, “Ordinary Palestinians see that Hamas has gone from this humble Palestinian leadership who lived and struggled among the people to living in these comfortable zones where they are no longer suffering and seem far from the Palestinian cause and issues. Definitely people talk about this and draw comparisons in anger.”
Wary of public backlash, Hamas says the leaders who have left plan on returning and casts leaders’ stays abroad as temporary foreign tours aimed at drumming up support. Some of these tours last for years and the string of exits keeps growing.
Hamas issued an unusual statement last year announcing the return of three top officials — al-Hayyah, al-Zahar and Salah — to Gaza, reassuring the public that they “did not flee.” Yet just two months later, news trickled out in Hamas media that al-Hayyah and Salah were on new “foreign tours” in Qatar and Iran.
As young Gazans die at sea, anger rises over leaders' travel | AP News
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