For Gazans in Egypt the road home is paved with pain

“I’m starting now to plan my return to Gaza as soon as the Rafah crossing opens for individuals,” said Palestinian journalist Mahmoud Fouda, who left the Strip with his family for Cairo in early 2024 after the humanitarian crisis deepened.

Fouda knows the home he spent thousands of dollars to set up in Rafah, near the Egyptian border, has been completely destroyed, and the neighborhood where he lived has turned into piles of rubble. Still, the wait to go back to Gaza is unbearable. It was the first time he had ever left Gaza, he told Al Manassa.

Soon after the cease-fire agreement was signed in Sharm El-Sheikh, talks about the fate of Palestinians who had left for Egypt began. They are estimated at about 110,000, according to official Palestinian figures.

The agreement offered a glimmer of hope to those wanting a quick return, even to a devastated homeland without basic services and years of reconstruction ahead. Others do not place an imminent return among their priorities as long as shelter and services are absent.

Return is the dream of the displaced

The first phase of the ceasefire was supposed to include opening the Rafah crossing for the movement of individuals in addition to goods from both the Egyptian and Palestinian sides, under the supervision of the European Union Border Assistance Mission with participation by police from European countries.

That is what Fouda, a correspondent for an Arabic-language TV channel, is eagerly awaiting, even if it means his three children—enrolled in public primary schools in Badr City, east of Cairo—lose a school year.

But the hope for Palestinians in Egypt seeking to return to Gaza was recently rekindled and then quickly complicated by conflicting political announcements surrounding the Rafah crossing.

The Palestinian Embassy in Cairo had declared that the crossing, which has been largely closed since Israeli forces took control of the Gaza side in May 2024, would reopen for Gazan residents hoping to travel home. This news spurred many Palestinians who have been stranded in Egypt—some for urgent medical care or fleeting visits—to register their personal details for the coordinated return process. For tens of thousands of Palestinians residing in Egypt, many of whom face significant financial strain and legal limbo without full residency rights, a functioning Rafah crossing is their only potential gateway back to their families and homes.

However, this brief wave of optimism was quickly dashed by a directive from the Israeli Prime Minister's office. Israel stated that the crossing would remain closed "until further notice," explicitly linking its reopening to Hamas' full fulfillment of the ceasefire agreement, specifically the return of all remains of deceased Israeli captives.

This geopolitical leverage places the personal movement of civilians squarely within the thorny issues of the captives and ceasefire negotiations. As a result, Palestinians in Egypt who had prepared for a return trip remain in a state of agonizing uncertainty, caught between the dire conditions of their war-torn homeland and the legal and financial precariousness of their prolonged stay abroad.

“Our trip to Egypt was temporary,” Fouda said, stressing that the family never planned to stay. “Even if our return to Gaza is risky and full of challenges, nothing compares to going back to the land where we were born.”

Palestinian Ambassador to Cairo Diab Al-Louh estimates the number of Palestinians who entered Egypt since the start of Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip at 110,000. He said all those who left did so either to receive medical treatment or to continue their studies in Egyptian schools and universities.

The ambassador said 28,000 Palestinians with dual nationality departed Egypt to the countries where they had lived before the war, in addition to several thousand who traveled elsewhere for medical care. That brings the total number who have left Egypt to about 30,000.

No substitute for Gaza

Om Fathi left the Strip for medical treatment in Cairo, intending to donate one of her kidneys to save her sister, who suffers from advanced health problems.

But the Palestinian widow has yet to complete the transplant. She has gone through lengthy medical tests without proceeding to surgery, while struggling to manage daily expenses after enrolling her daughter in a school several kilometers from where they live.

On top of that, Om Fathi has been cut off from her sons, who endured the horrors of war and fled their home in the central Strip to the south, in Khan Younis. She remains stuck in Cairo, torn between the hope of reuniting with her children and the difficulties that have accompanied her journey to Egypt.

“My four sons settled in a tent in Khan Younis. I haven’t been in touch with them for more than a month because they don’t have a mobile phone. I live with my daughter, who joined an Al-Azhar primary school. I live in the hope of seeing them again, either in Gaza or in Cairo,” Om Fathi said, fighting back tears as she spoke to Al Manassa.

“Everyone is waiting impatiently to return to Gaza, but only once the ceasefire is firmly in place and security has stabilized in the Strip,” said Abu Musbah Mosleh, a Palestinian in his 50s, speaking to Al Manassa. Like thousands of Gazans, he is watching the next steps under the US plan, which includes removing Hamas from the Strip’s administration, installing a transitional administration under President Donald Trump’s supervision, and deploying international forces to maintain security and uphold the ceasefire.

For Mosleh, however, the picture remains hazy. Reports from Gaza after the fighting stopped do not suggest stable security conditions. Clashes have erupted between Hamas security forces and some Palestinian clans the movement accuses of collaborating with Israel and stealing aid trucks. There is also no clear mechanism for Rafah’s operations or the procedures that will govern the return of Gazans who want to go back.

Mosleh left Gaza before the end of 2023 after Israeli bombardment hit his home in the central governorate. He has since settled with his nine children in Imbaba, Giza. They have taken up different occupations: his daughter works in nursing, his eldest son is pursuing graduate studies at Cairo University, and the Palestinian Embassy in Cairo integrated his younger children in the West Bank’s online schooling system.

Despite their relative stability in Egypt, the thought of returning to Gaza has never left Mosleh’s mind. “We can’t live without our homeland. We will definitely go back, no matter how great the destruction, even if we have to live in a tent among our family and loved ones.”

Conditional return

For others, returning to the devastated Strip—where the infrastructure has collapsed, hundreds of thousands are living in uninhabitable tents, and educational institutions have been heavily damaged—remains unthinkable for now. Egyptian estimates say the Strip will need at least three years to rebuild.

“Whoever gets out is reborn, and whoever goes in is lost,” said Dina Ali, using a common saying to explain her reluctance. “How can I take my little ones back to a place without food, electricity, hospitals, or schools?”

Dina left Gaza city with her husband and two children and moved to Cairo in mid-2024, after their home was destroyed and the family lost its income from a clothing business. She tried to resume work in Egypt through projects set up by the General Union of Palestinian Women, but she later had to shut down because the project could not cover its operating costs. For now, she relies mainly on savings she managed to bring out of Gaza.

“I won’t go back until I see that it’s at least fit for life,” she said. With the ceasefire in place, Dina’s feelings are mixed—joy at the end of the bombing tempered by the knowledge that her extended family, displaced from Gaza City to Khan Younis, is living without shelter. That reality never leaves her mind whenever she thinks about returning.

Alaa Mohamed’s position is similar. The Palestinian journalist, who left the Strip with her husband and children in the middle of last year, fears returning without guarantees for her children’s safety. “The situation was extremely difficult when I left—tents crammed together, overcrowded, without the basics of life. Now the destruction is much worse. The Strip has been destroyed entirely. I think about my young children and their needs before taking any step,” Alaa told Al Manassa.

As Gaza draws its first breaths after a long war that claimed tens of thousands of lives, what awaits its people remains unclear amid catastrophic conditions and uncertainty over how the Strip will be governed after nearly 20 years of Hamas rule. Those questions, however, do not preoccupy Mahmoud Fouda, who is counting the days until he can book a ticket home.