One month has passed since Mazen Hania was last with his father, Zac, in the Gaza Strip, heading south towards the Rafah Crossing.
Irish-born Mazen (19), along with his mother, Batoul, and three younger siblings, left the enclave in late November after they were granted clearance to pass into Egypt. Zac, for reasons still unknown, was denied passage through the border crossing.
“I feel guilty for leaving my father there to die. I wish, maybe, if could get there, back to Gaza, to die with my father there. That would be better for me,” Mazen says.
Mazen now passes his days in an apartment in west Dublin, waiting for news from Gaza. Contact with Zac is sporadic. “My Dad is Irish. How can this happen? I can’t comprehend this, really. It’s crazy.”
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A press conference, called by People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett, brought various Palestinian people living in Ireland – including Mazen and his mother Batoul – to Buswells Hotel on Molesworth Street in Dublin on Tuesday morning, where they pleaded with the Government to advocate for the safe passage of their family members out of the embattled enclave.
“Zac is an Irish citizen ... he has the right to go out,” Batoul Hania said.
After his family left for Ireland, Zac was told by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) that “relevant authorities” had not accepted his name on to a list of Irish citizens with clearance to leave Gaza. At the time, Irish authorities informed Zac that they were no longer able to assist him in his efforts to leave the Gaza Strip.
Zac, a researcher and translator, moved to Ireland in 1998, and lived in Castleknock, west Dublin for a period. He returned to Gaza about a decade ago.
Three weeks into the Israel-Hamas war, the Hania family were forced to evacuate from their home in Gaza City, in the north of the enclave. “In short, it was like going through hell ... blood here and there, smell of dead bodies, shooting, queuing 45 minutes in the hot sun,” Batoul said.
She spoke of “horrifying” interactions with Israeli soldiers, “who were pointing their rifles against our kids’ faces”.
“This is a matter of death or life,” Batoul said. “Please, Tánaiste, anyone in authority – please, reunite these families. These kids ... they’re crying for their father.”
Nada Musleh, who moved to Ireland two years ago to pursue a PhD at the University of Limerick, last heard from her husband, Abdullah, on Wednesday. He, presumably, remains trapped in Gaza, she said.
“He was telling me, ‘Just take care of the kids ... I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again.’”
Ms Musleh spoke of her 12-year-old daughter Jude’s close relationship with her father.
“To be honest, I can’t look my daughter in the face and tell her that she will never be able to see her father again. She still has hope. She keeps on talking about him every day,” she said.
Acknowledging that she and her family are not Irish citizens, Ms Musleh nonetheless asked Irish authorities to assist in reuniting her family.
“There are people who have connections with Ireland, who have family members who are in Gaza, and literally from minute to minute, from day to day, from week to week, they do not know if their family members will still be alive,” Mr Boyd Barrett said, opening the press conference on Tuesday morning.
He said that the Government has indicated that there are still a number of Irish citizens in Gaza, including Zac Hania.
Mr Boyd Barrett described the Gaza Strip as “a prison” and a “concentration camp”. “The Palestinians have no control how to get in and out of Gaza… so it is literally a prison, a concentration camp.”
However, Tánaiste Micheál Martin has accused Mr Boyd Barrett of “trying to drive a wedge” between the Government and Palestinians with Irish connections trapped in Gaza.
Responding to comments made by Mr Boyd Barrett on Tuesday morning in which he implied the Government was taking insufficient action on helping people with Irish citizenship and connections leave the locked-in strip of land, Mr Martin said he took strong issue with any suggestion that the Government had given only general responses to his questions.
“I don’t think he was particularly helpful when we are trying to get all the Irish citizens out of Gaza,” he said.
Mr Martin said the Government had been in contact with relatives of those trapped in Gaza. He said Ireland did not get to write the list. He said that originally the Egyptian and Israeli authorities told the Government that only those with passports would get out, and the Government had pressed for child dependents and spouses, who may not have passports, to be allowed leave.
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