(Gaza) – Israel’s sweeping restrictions on leaving Gaza are depriving its more than two million citizens of opportunities for their lives, Human Rights Watch said today on the 15th anniversary of the 2007 shutdown. The closure has devastated Gaza’s economy, contributed to the fragmentation of the Palestinian people and is part of the crimes against humanity of acomponentheid and the Israeli government’s persecution of millions of Palestinians.
Israel’s closure policy prevents most Gazans from traveling to the West Bank, preventing professionals, artists, athletes, academics and others from seeking opportunities in Palestine and traveling through Israel, restricting their rights to painting and education. Egypt’s restrictive policies at its Rafah crossing with Gaza, adding unnecessary delays and mistreatment of travelers, have exacerbated the damage caused by the closure to human rights.
“Israel, with The help of Egypt, has turned Gaza into an open-air prison,” said Omar Shakir, Israel-Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. , Gaza’s more than two million Palestinians remain under what amounts to a 15-year lockdown.
Israel deserves to end its blanket ban on Gaza citizens and allow the free movement of other people to and from Gaza, subject to the maximum individual checks and physical searches for security reasons.
Between February 2021 and March 2022, Human Rights Watch interviewed 20 Palestinians who attempted to leave Gaza through the Israeli-controlled Erez crossing or the Egyptian-administered Rafah crossing. separately to search for data on an Egyptian company operating at the Rafah crossing but has not received any reaction to date.
Since 2007, the Israeli government, with rare exceptions, has banned Palestinians from passing through Erez, the passenger crossing from Gaza to Israel, through which they can succeed in the West Bank and abroad through Jordan. Israel also prevents the Palestinian government from operating an airport. The Israeli government also severely limits the access and exit of goods.
They justify the closure, which came after Hamas took political control of Gaza from the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in June 2007, for security reasons. The Israeli government has said it wants to minimize travel between Gaza and the West Bank to prevent exports. of a “human terror network” from Gaza to the West Bank, which has a porous border with Israel and is home to thousands of Israeli settlers.
This policy has been reduced to a fraction of what it was two decades ago, Human Rights Watch said. The Israeli government has instituted a formal “policy of separation” between Gaza and the West Bank, despite foreign consensus that those two parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territories form a “single territorial unit. “Israel accepted this precept in the 1995 Oslo Accords, signed with the Palestine Liberation Organization. road through Egypt and Jordan rather than through Israeli territory.
As a result of those policies, Palestinian professionals, students, artists and athletes living in Gaza have missed out on important opportunities for progress that are not available in Gaza. Human Rights Watch interviewed seven other people who said the Israeli government had not responded to their requests. to go through Erez, and 3 others who said Israel had rejected their permits because they did not meet Israel’s strict criteria.
Walaa Sada, 31, a filmmaker, said she applied for permits to participate in film education in Judea and Samaria in 2014 and 2018, after spending years convincing her family to be allowed to be alone, but the Israeli government never responded to her requests. . . The practical nature of education, which required filming live scenes and running in studios, made remote participation impractical and Sada ended up with no sessions.
The “world shrank” when she won those rejections, Sada said, making her feel “trapped in a small box. . . For us in Gaza, the hands of the clock stopped. a flight and travel, while we. . . let us let ourselves die waiting for our turn.
The Egyptian government has exacerbated the influence of the closure by restricting movement out of Gaza and at times completely sealing its Rafah border crossing, Gaza’s only exit outside of Erez to the outside world. Since May 2018, the Egyptian government has kept Rafah open more regularly, making it, amid sweeping Israeli restrictions, the world’s top outdoor outlet for Gaza residents.
Palestinians, however, still face major obstacles to passing through Egypt, in addition to having to wait weeks to get the permit, unless they are willing to pay heaps of dollars to agencies with significant ties to the Egyptian government to speed up their journey, denials of access and abuses through Egypt. government.
Sada also said she had the opportunity to participate in a screenwriting workshop in Tunisia in 2019, but was unable to afford the $2,000 she would be charged to pay for the service that would allow her to travel on time. His turn to travel came here six weeks later, after the workshop had already taken place.
As an occupying Power that maintains a meaningful sense over many facets of life in Gaza, Israel has a legal responsibility under foreign humanitarian law to ensure the well-being of the population. Palestinians are also entitled under foreign human rights law to freedom of movement, i. e. within the occupied territory, a right that Israel can limit under foreign law only in reaction to express threats to security.
Israel’s policy, however, allegedly denies the loose movement of other people in Gaza, with rare exceptions, regardless of any individualized assessment of the security threat a user might pose. Such restrictions on the right of loose movement do not satisfy the requirement that it be strict and proportionate to achieve a legal objective. Israel has had years and many opportunities to expand more strongly tailored responses to security threats that minimize restrictions on rights.
Egypt’s legal obligations to the citizens of Gaza are more limited, as it is not an occupying power. However, as a State party to the Fourth Geneva Convention, it deserved to ensure compliance with the Convention “in all circumstances”, adding coverage for civilians living under military profession who were unable to travel due to illegal restrictions imposed by the occupying Power. The Egyptian government also deserves to consider the effect of its border closure on the rights of Palestinians living in Gaza. that it cannot enter and leave Gaza by some other means, adding the right to leave a country.
The Egyptian government removes unreasonable pitfalls that limit Palestinians’ rights and allow transit through its territory, subject to security considerations, and ensures that its decisions are transparent and non-arbitrary and take into account the human rights of those affected.
“The closure of Gaza prevents talented and pro-others, who have so much to give to their society, from seeking opportunities that other people take for granted,” Shakir said. “Preventing Palestinians in Gaza from moving freely within their homeland damages life and highlights the ruthless truth of apartheid and the persecution of millions of Palestinians.
Israel’s Obligations to Gaza’s Foreign Law
The Israeli government claims “broad forces and discretion over who can enter its territory” and that “a foreigner has no legal right to enter the sovereign territory of the state, adding the goal of transit to [the West Bank] or abroad. ” While foreign human rights law gives governments wide latitude regarding access by foreigners, Israel has strengthened its obligations to Gazans. Due to Israel’s continued controls on the life and well-being of Gazans, Israel remains an occupying force under foreign humanitarian law. , despite the withdrawal of its armed forces and settlements from the territory in 2005. The UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross, guardians of international humanitarian law, have reached this determination. As an occupying force, Israel remains obligated to provide the rest of the people of Gaza with the rights and protections afforded them by professional law. The Israeli government continues to control Gaza’s territorial waters and airspace, as well as the movement of other people and goods, unless they are on Gaza’s border with Egypt. Israel also controls the registration of the Palestinian population and the infrastructure on which Gaza depends.
Israel has a legal responsibility to respect the human rights of Palestinians living in Gaza, adding their right to freedom of movement in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and abroad, which affects both the right to leave a country and the right to enter one’s own country. it is also obliged to respect the rights of Palestinians for whom freedom of movement is a prerequisite, such as the rights to education, painting and health. public health, public order and the rights of others, such limitations shall be proportionate and “limitations shall not prejudice the essence of the right; the dating between the law and the limitation, between the rule and the exception, will have not to be reversed.
While the law of the profession allows occupying Powers to impose security restrictions on civilians, it also obliges them to repair the public life of the occupied population. This legal responsibility accrues in an extended profession, in which the occupant has more time and opportunities to expand. responses more strongly tailored to security threats that minimize restrictions on rights. In addition, the wishes of the contracted population accumulate over time. The suspension of almost all freedom of movement for a short period of time temporarily disrupts public life in general, but the temporary and indefinite suspension in Gaza has had a much more debilitating impact, fragmenting populations, fraying circles of relatives and social ties, deepening discrimination against women, and blocking others from seeking opportunities for their lives.
The effect is detrimental given the denial of freedom of movement by others who are confined to a part of the occupied territory, who cannot interact directly with the majority of the occupied population living in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. , and its rich collection of educational, cultural, devout and advertising institutions.
After 55 years of profession and 15 years of endless closure in Gaza in sight, Israel deserves to fully respect the human rights of Palestinians, using as a reference the rights it grants to Israeli citizens. Israel deserves to abandon a technique that prohibits in the absence of individual humanitarian cases exceptional defines, in favor of a technique that allows loose movement in the absence of exceptional individual security cases.
Israel’s Closure
Most of the Palestinians who grew up in Gaza under this closure never left the Gaza Strip from 40 to 11 (25 to 7). Over the past 25 years, Israel has increasingly limited the movement of Gazans. Since June 2007, when Hamas seized Gaza from the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA), Gaza has been largely closed.
The Israeli government justifies this closure on security grounds, in light of the “rise of Hamas strength in the Gaza Strip,” as it stated in a December 2019 court filing. In particular, the government stresses the threat that Hamas and Palestinian armed teams will recruit or coerce Gaza citizens they have let in through Erez “for the commission of terrorist acts and the movement of agents, knowledge, intelligence, budget or apparatus for terrorist militants. “Their policy, however, amounts to a general denial of rare exceptions, rather than widespread respect for the Palestinians’ right to freedom of movement, to refuse solely on the basis of individual security grounds.
Since 2007, the Israeli army has limited movement through the Erez crossing, unless in what it considers “normal humanitarian circumstances,” which basically encompass those in need of life-saving medical care outside Gaza and its environs, the government also makes exceptions for many businessmen and staff and a few others. Israel has limited travel even for those seeking to travel under those limited exceptions, affecting their rights to health and life, among others, as Human Rights Watch and other teams have documented. Most Gazans do not have compatibility with those exemptions to travel through Erez, even if it is to succeed in the West Bank.
Between January 2015 and December 2019, before covid-19 restrictions began, an average of 373 Palestinians left Gaza through Erez each day, less than 1. 5% of the daily average of 26,000 in September 2000, before the closure, according to the Israeli rights organization Gisha. The Israeli government has further reinforced the Covid-19 pandemic shutdown: between March 2020 and December 2021, an average of 143 Palestinians left Gaza via Erez each day, according to Gisha.
The Israeli government announced in March 2022 that it would allow 20,000 Palestinians into Gaza to work in Israel in construction and agriculture. Gisha reports that the actual number of valid permits in this category was 9,424, as of May 22.
The Israeli government has also seriously limited for more than two decades the Palestinian use of Gaza’s airspace and territorial waters. They blocked the reopening of the airport, which Israeli forces disabled in January 2002, and prevented the Palestinian government from building a seaport, leaving Palestinians dependent on leaving Gaza by land to travel abroad. The few Palestinians who can cross into Erez are sometimes banned from traveling abroad through Israel’s foreign airport and will instead have to travel abroad through Jordan. Palestinians wishing to leave Gaza through Erez, to the West Bank or abroad, submit programs through the Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee in Gaza, which sends applications to the Israeli government, which grants or does not grant a permit.
Separation between Gaza and the West Bank
As part of the shutdown, the Israeli government sought to “differentiate” its political approaches to Gaza and the West Bank, such as imposing more radical restrictions on the movement of other people and goods from Gaza to the West Bank, and selling the separation between them. The army’s “Procedure for establishment in the Gaza Strip through residents of Judea and Samaria,” published in 2018, states that “in 2006, the decision was made to introduce a policy of separation between Judea and the rule of Samaria [the West Bank] and the Gaza Strip in light of Hamas’ rise to power in the Gaza Strip. The existing policy explicitly aims to decrease between zones.
In each of the 11 cases reviewed by Human Rights Watch involving others seeking to go to the West Bank, adding East Jerusalem, in search of paintings and educational opportunities that were not available in Gaza, the Israeli government either did not respond to permit requests or rejected them, either for security reasons or because they did not comply with the closure policy. Human Rights Watch also reviewed permit programs on the Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee’s website, or screenshots of it, adding the prestige of permit programs, when sent to the Israeli government, and the reaction received. , If any.
Raed Issa, a 42-year-old artist, said the Israeli government responded to his request for permission in early December 2015 to attend an exhibition of his art at an art gallery in Ramallah between Dec. 27 and Jan. 16, 2016.
The exhibition “Beyond the Dream” aimed to shed light on the stage in Gaza after the 2014 war. Issa said the Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee continued to identify the prestige of his request as “sent and awaiting response” and that he ended up having to practically attend the opening of the exhibition. Issa felt that not being physically available hindered his ability to interact with the public, network and publicize his work, which he said limited his success and hampered sales of his works. He described feeling sad “that I am doing my own art exhibition in my local country and that I should not attend, I should not move freely. “
Ashraf Sahweel, 47, chairman of the board of trustees of the Gaza Center for Arts and Culture, said Gaza artists don’t hear a response after applying for Israeli entry, forcing them to miss opportunities to attend exhibitions and other cultural events. Being a painter himself, he made seven stays between 2013 and 2022, but the Israeli government did not respond or reject all requests, he said. Sahweel said he had “lost all hope about the option of traveling through Erez. “
Palestinian athletes in Gaza face similar restrictions when seeking to compete with their counterparts in the West Bank, even though Israeli military rules in particular identify “athlete entry” among the allowed exemptions from the closure. The rules, updated in February 2022, state that “all citizens of the Gaza Strip who are members of national and local sports groups would possibly enter Israel in transit to the Judea and Samaria region [West Bank] or for official team activities. “
Hilal al-Ghawash, 25, told Human Rights Watch that his soccer team, Khadamat Rafah, faced a rival West Bank team, balata Youth Center, in July 2019 in the Palestinian Club final, and the winner was entitled to constitute Palestine in the Asian Cup. The Palestinian Football Federation requested the entry of the entire 22-person team and the 13-person squad, but the Israeli authorities, without explanation, granted entry to only four people, of whom only one was a player. . The adjustment was postponed.
After Gisha appealed the ruling to the Jerusalem District Court, the Israeli government granted permits to another 11 people, adding six players, claiming that the other 24 had been denied on unspecified security grounds. Al-Ghah among the players who did not get a permit. The Jerusalem District Court upheld the denials. With Khadamat Rafah prevented from reaching the West Bank, the Palestinian Football Federation cancelled the last match of the Palestine Cup.
Al-Ghawash said West Bank matches are of specific importance to Gaza footballers as they offer the opportunity to showcase their talent to West Bank clubs, which are widely considered amazing for those in Gaza and pay better. Despite the cancellation, al-Ghawash said the Balata Youth Center will offer him a contract later in the year to play for them. The Palestinian Football Federation applied for a permit on behalf of al-Ghawash, but said it had not won a reaction and had not been able to register with the team.
In 2021, al-Ghawash signed a contract with West Bank team Hilal al-Quds Club. The Palestinian Football Federation again submitted an application, but this time the Israeli army refused the permit on unspecified security grounds. Al-Ghawash said he did not belong to any armed organization or political movement and had no idea on what basis the Israeli government had denied him a permit.
Missing those opportunities forced al-Ghawash to give up not only a higher salary, but also the opportunity to play for more competitive groups in the West Bank, which may have brought him closer to his purpose of joining the Palestinian national team. “There is a long race in the West Bank, but here in Gaza there is only one death sentence,” he said. “The closure devastates the long career of the players. Gaza is full of talented people, but it is very difficult to leave.
Palestinian academics and professionals cannot download permits to examine or exercise in the West Bank. In 2016, East Jerusalem’s Augusta Victoria Hospital agreed that 10 physics scholars from Gaza’s Al-Azhar University would go to the hospital for a six-month exercise. program. The Israeli government refused entry to five students without offering justification, two of the academics said.
The other five fellows first earned permits valid for only 14 days and then found it difficult to obtain the following permits. Neither were able to complete the full program, the two fellows said. One of them, Mahmoud Dabour, 28, said that when he implemented a momentary permit, he got no response. Two months later, he reapplyed and checked for a permit valid for a week. He got another permit, valid for 10 days, but then, when he returned and implemented for the fifth time, the Israeli government rejected his request for permission without giving any reason. As a result, he was unable to complete the educational program and, without the certification participants get in the end, he said, he can’t. t apply for jobs or attend meetings or workshops in the field.
Dabour said education cannot be presented in Gaza because radioactive curtains expire too temporarily for them to work after passing lengthy Israeli inspections of fabrics entering the Gaza Strip. There are no assistive devices of the kind that academics want for education in Gaza. Dabour said.
One of the fellows whose permission was denied said: “I feel like I studied for five years for nothing, that my life stopped. The student asked that his call not be released for his safety.
Two workers at Zimam, a Ramallah-based organization focused on youth empowerment and conflict resolution, said the Israeli government had continuously denied them permission to attend organizational trainings and strategic meetings. Atta al-Masri, Gaza’s 31-year-old regional director, said he had implemented to let in 4 times but never won one. The Israeli government did not respond the first 3 times and, the last time in 2021, denied him a permit on the grounds that he “did not comply” with the exemptions allowed for the closure. He has been running for Zimam since 2009, but only met his colleagues in user for the first time in Egypt in March 2022.
Ahed Abdullah, 29, coordinator of Zimam’s youth program in Gaza, said she implemented two entry permits in 2021, but the Israeli government rejected any of the applications on grounds of “non-compliance”:
That is my right. My simplest right. Why was I rejected?My colleagues who are outside Palestine have controlled doing this, while I am inside Palestine, I have not been able to move on to the other part of Palestine. . . there are only 2-3 hours from Gaza to Ramallah, why?Why am I at a disadvantage of being with my colleagues and doing activities with them instead of doing it in boring subcommittee rooms on Zoom?
The Israeli government has also made it highly unlikely that Palestinians in Gaza will resettle in the West Bank. Due to Israeli restrictions, thousands of Gaza citizens who arrived with a transience let in and now live in the West Bank cannot obtain legal residency. Although Israel claims that such restrictions are similar to maintaining security, evidence accumulated through Human Rights Watch suggests that the main motivation is Palestinian demographics in the West Bank, whose land Israel seeks to retain, unlike the Gaza Strip.
Egypt
Since most Gazans cannot pass through Erez, the Egyptian-administered Rafah crossing has become Gaza’s main outlet to the outside world, especially in recent years. The Egyptian government virtually shut down Rafah for about five years after the July 2013 military coup in Egypt that ousted President Mohamed Morsi, whom the military accused of receiving Hamas support. Egypt, however, eased restrictions in May 2018, amid the Great March of Return, the recurring Palestinian protests at the time near the fences separating Gaza and Israel.
Although Rafah has remained more open since May 2018, the displacement through Rafah is only a fraction of what it was before Egypt’s 2013 coup. While an average of 40,000 people crossed per month on any of the instructions before the coup, the monthly average was 12,172 in 2019 and 15,077 in 2021, according to Gisha.
Human Rights Watch interviewed 16 Gazans seeking to pass through Rafah. Almost all said they opted for this direction because of the near impossibility of obtaining an Israeli permit to pass through Erez.
Gazans wishing to leave via Rafah must register in advance through a procedure that the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has deemed “confusing” and “obscure”. Citizens of Gaza can register through the official registration procedure. administered through Gaza’s Ministry of Interior, or informally through the so-called tanseeq, or through coordination with the Egyptian government, paying agencies or mediators for a position on a separate list coordinated through the Egyptian government. Having two separate lists of legal ers coordinated through another government has fueled “bribery allegations in Gaza and Egypt to ensure a faster response,” according to OCHA.
The formal procedure takes two to three months, unless those traveling for medical reasons, whose programs are processed more quickly, said Gazans seeking to leave Gaza through Rafah. who do not meet the express travel criteria. The criteria lack transparency, however, Gisha said they come with a reference for a medical appointment in Egypt or valid documents to enter a third country.
To avoid waiting and the threat of rejection, many opt for the tanseeq direction. Several interviewees said they had paid large sums of cash to Palestinian agents or Gaza-based travel agencies that work directly with the Egyptian government to speed up the movement of others. On social media, some of those companies advertise that they can guarantee vacations in a few days to those who provide payment and a copy of their passport. The tanseeq fee has fluctuated from several hundred US dollars to several thousand us dollars over the past decade, partly depending on how Rafah opens.
In recent years, travel agencies have introduced a new “VIP” tanseeq, which accelerates the timeless adventure in transit between Rafah and Cairo, gives flexibility in the date of travel and guarantees a greater remedy through the authorities. The charge was $700, as of January 2022.
The Cairo-based company that provides the VIP tanseeq facility, Hala Consulting and Tourism Services, has close ties to Egypt’s security facilities and is largely comprised of former Egyptian military officers, a human rights activist, and a journalist who researched those issues, Human Rights Watch said. This allows the company to reduce processing times and delays at adventure checkpoints from Rafah to Cairo. Both the activist and the journalist asked that their names not be revealed for security reasons.
The company is connected to prominent Egyptian businessman Ibrahim El-Argani, who has close ties to Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi. Ergany, one of the few Egyptian businessmen who exports goods to Gaza from Egypt, owns the Sinai Sons company, which has an exclusive contract to manage all contracts similar to Gaza’s reconstruction efforts. Human Rights Watch has written to El-Argani to seek his views on these issues, but to date has not received any reaction.
A 34-year-old computer engineer and entrepreneur said he would travel to Saudi Arabia in 2019 to meet with an investor and discuss a possible allocation to sell auto parts online. He decided not to run through Erez, as he had done. implemented to let in 8 times between 2016 and 2018 and had been rejected or not heard.
He first registered through the official procedure of the Ministry of the Interior and obtained the permit after 3 months. However, on the day allotted to leave via Rafah, an Egyptian officer at the scene said he had not figured out the reason why his holiday was “compelling” enough and was denied passage. A few months later, he tried to return for the same purpose, this time opting for the tanseeq and paying $400, and this time he managed to succeed in Saudi Arabia within a week after hunting. outside the matrix
He said he would like to go on vacation with his wife, but fears the Egyptian government won’t give the vacation a convincing enough explanation of why to travel and that his only option is to pay heaps or thousands of dollars to do tanseeq.
A 73-year-old man sought to go through Rafah in February 2021, along with his 46-year-old daughter, to undergo a knee replacement at al-Sheikh Zayed Hospital in Cairo. He said Gaza did not have the capacity to provide such an operation. The man and his daughter are relatives of a Huguy Rights Watch staff member. They implemented through the procedure of the Ministry of the Interior and obtained approval in just over a week.
However, after waiting several hours in the Egyptian lobby of Rafah on the day of the trip, the Egyptian government included the woman’s call among the 70 calls from other people who were not allowed to cross that day, the woman said. he received a note from the doctor saying he needed someone to accompany him given his medical condition, but the officer told him, “Either you alone or go back with her to Gaza. “She said she returned to Gaza, along with 70 others, and then went alone.
Five other people who controlled travel through Rafah said they had suffered poor conditions and ill-treatment, and added intrusive records through the Egyptian government, and several said they felt the Egyptian government was treating them as “criminals. “Several other people said Egyptian officials confiscated parts on the trip, adding a beloved camera and cell phone, for no apparent reason.
Upon leaving Rafah, Palestinians are transported by bus to Cairo airport. The adventure lasts about seven hours, but other people said the adventure lasts up to 3 days between long waiting periods on the bus, at checkpoints and amid other delays, in extreme weather conditions. Many of those who traveled through Rafah said that during this trip, the Egyptian government prevented passengers from using their phones.
The parents of a 7-year-old boy with autism and a rare brain disease said they tried to travel to receive medical treatment for him in August 2021, but the Egyptian government only allowed the boy and his mother in. The mother said they returned from vacation. a Gaza lasted 4 days, basically because of the closure of Rafah. Meanwhile, she said, they spent hours waiting at the checkpoints, in excessive heat, her son crying non-stop. She said she felt “humiliated” and treated like “an animal,” noting that she would “rather die than cross Rafah again. “
A 33-year-old filmmaker, who traveled from Rafah to Morocco in late 2019 to attend a film screening, said the return trip from Cairo to Rafah took 3 days, much of it at checkpoints amid the bloodless winter in the Sinai desert.
A 34-year-old man said he planned to travel in August 2019 via Rafah to the United Arab Emirates for a job interview as an Arabic teacher. He said that on the date of his trip, the Egyptian government had rejected him, claiming that they had reached their quota of ers. He crossed the next day, but said that since it was Thursday and Rafah was closed on Friday, the Egyptian government forced the ers to sleep two nights in Rafah, without offering them food or access to an empty bathroom.
Then the adventure to Cairo’s airport lasted two days, which he described passing checkpoints where officials forced passengers to “put their hands behind their backs as they searched their bags. “his job interview and found out that someone else had been hired. Lately he is unemployed in Gaza.
Given the uncertainty of the rafah crossing, Gazans said they wait to book their flight from Cairo until they arrive. Booking so late means, beyond other obstacles, having to wait until they can find a suitable and reasonably priced flight, allowing extra days. to travel and spend additional cash on changeable or last-minute tickets. A similar dynamic prevails regarding overseas travel through Erez to Amman.
Human Rights Watch interviewed 4 men under the age of 40 on visas to third countries, who were allowed to enter only by the Egyptian government for transit purposes. The government transported the men to Cairo airport and made them wait in the so-called “deportation room. “” until the time of your flight. The men compared the room to a “prison cell,” with limited services and unsanitary conditions. All described a formula in which bribes are required to leave the room and book a plane ticket, unload food, drinks or a cigarette, and abuse. One of the men described an officer who took him out of the room and asked, “Won’t you give egypt anything?And he said other people in the room told him he then did the same to them.