"She describes how she was harshly interrogated for three hours, how she was forced to identify her son among a group of people, and how Israeli investigators kept aggressively asking her about his whereabouts. "I do not know where any of them are," she says, recounting that the interrogators kept yelling at her and telling her that she was a liar. As an elderly woman, she kept begging them to let her rest."
""They killed me... they killed me while they were hitting me and tying the handcuffs tighter on my hands," al-Ekir recalled with unstoppable tears. "They put fire inside me, they burned my heart." For close to two years, tens of thousands of Palestinians like al-Ekir have been trapped outside Gaza, waiting to return home after leaving the Strip during the genocide. That long-awaited opportunity finally came on February 2nd, when the Rafah crossing with Egypt was opened."
"Initial reports estimated, based on Israeli claims, that each day, 50 people would be allowed by Israeli authorities to return to Gaza while 150 people would be allowed to leave the Strip. However, local Palestinian reports confirmed that during the past four days since the crossing opened, a total of 138 Palestinians and their companions left Gaza, while only 77 people were allowed back in."
Intisar al-Ekir returned to Gaza through the Rafah crossing with visible signs of handcuffs and described three hours of harsh interrogation, forced identification of her son, aggressive questioning, and physical tightening of restraints. She reported being yelled at, accused of lying, physically assaulted, and left in severe emotional distress. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have remained outside Gaza for nearly two years awaiting return. The Rafah crossing reopened on February 2 after being closed since May 2024. Israeli estimates of daily permitted returns were higher than local reports, which show far fewer people allowed back in.
Read at Truthout
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