Pinoy in Gaza doesn't know if they will survive, says brother

People in the Gaza Strip are suffering from the lack of food, water, fuel, and electricity due to an Israeli blockade of the territory after an attack by Hamas militants on southern Israel last week, and are trying to flee through a border crossing that is still closed.

On Friday, Israel ordered civilian residents of the northern Gaza Strip, numbering around 1.1 million, to move southwards to clear the way for an expected ground invasion in retaliation for the Hamas attack. 

Thousands—Palestinians and foreign nationals alike, including Filipinos—have been trying to escape. The Department of Foreign Affairs said it is hoping that Egypt and Israel will agree to the safe exit of foreign nationals through a crossing on the Egypt-Gaza border, where the Philippine Embassy in Cairo aims to pick up Filipinos for their safe exit.

According to Jonathan Andal's report on "24 Oras Weekend," Rashad Salama's brother, a Palestinian and Filipino citizen in Gaza, is among the Filipinos being evacuated.

Salama said they last spoke on the phone last night.

"They are telling me, 'You cannot feel what we are feeling now. We are under pressure. We don't know if we will live another moment, any moment'," he said.

Salama said that their house in Gaza was destroyed, so his brother and his family fled to Rafah, which is near the Egyptian border.

They were sheltered in the house of a Palestinian, along with five other Filipino families.

There were 20 people there, including eight children.

"They are now suffering from no food, no water, and they are a big group. They really are scared and don't know if they will survive another minute or not, not another day," he added.

On Saturday, Salama's brother and another Filipino went to the border of Egypt. But after waiting five hours, they were told that the authorities had revoked the decision to open the Egyptian border to Gazans.

"Please try their best to take them out from the Gaza Strip because it really is everywhere, the bombing there and they didn't know if they will survive," Salama said.

Authorities said more than 2,300 people have been killed—a quarter of them children—and nearly 10,000 wounded in Gaza, according to a Reuters report on Sunday. — Sherylin Untalan/BM, GMA Integrated News