"When Rotana al-Raqab learned that her name and her mother's were included on the first list of Palestinians allowed to return to Gaza through the Rafah crossing, she felt, briefly, that the long months she had spent stranded in Egypt were finally coming to an end. But what she initially believed would be a path back to her five children instead turned into a gruelling ordeal of hours of waiting, body searches, interrogations, and humiliating treatment at the hands of Israeli forces."
"Rotana, 31, left Gaza last March with her mother, Huda Abu Abed, 56, seeking urgent medical treatment after being told she needed a major heart operation. They left behind Rotana's six children with family members, who at the time were displaced in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis. Throughout the separation, Rotana says the fear of what was happening at home as Israel continued its genocidal war on Gaza never left her."
Rotana al-Raqab and her mother were on the first list to return to Gaza through the Rafah crossing after months stranded in Egypt. Rotana left Gaza in March for urgent heart surgery and left six children with displaced family in al-Mawasi, Khan Younis. The reopening of Rafah was part of a second phase of a Gaza ceasefire deal the United States said began mid-January, even as Israeli attacks continued. On arrival, Rotana experienced hours of waiting, body searches, interrogations, confiscation of belongings, and humiliating treatment by Israeli forces. Rafah is the only Gaza border crossing that does not cross Israeli territory.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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