Questioning and delays: A Palestinian family’s grueling return to Gaza

KHAN YUNIS, Gaza Strip  — It had been 647 days since Amani Imran left her home, and she had felt every single one of them.

So when the call came at 10 p.m. telling her she was finally leaving Egypt and returning to Gaza the next day, she didn’t think about the house that was destroyed in Israel’s onslaught on the enclave, or worry about the lack of food, water or electricity, or fear the Israeli bombardment that remains a daily threat despite the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Instead, Imran told her husband, 63-year-old Adel, and her youngest daughter, Duaa, 16, to get ready.

“We were all eager to go back,” Imran recalled. “But my daughter Duaa — she wanted it the most. She wanted Gaza.”

The Imran family was among the tens of thousands of Palestinians desperate to return to Gaza and who spent months, if not years, waiting for Israel to open the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, which was all but sealed after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel seized the crossing in May 2024 and shut it down completely.

A Trump-brokered ceasefire in October last year stipulated that Rafah — the sole way in and out of the enclave under Palestinian control — would be opened, but Israel refused to allow passage until the militant group Hamas handed back all hostages, dead or alive.

After Israel retrieved the remains of the last deceased hostage last month, it permitted limited, two-way pedestrian traffic under an agreement with Egypt: 50 Palestinians are allowed into Gaza every day and 50 Palestinians in need of medical care may leave. (Each patient is allowed two escorts.)

Roughly 80,000 Palestinians registered with the Palestinian Embassy in Egypt to return to the strip, Egyptian state media reported, and more than 20,000 sick and wounded Palestinians need to leave Gaza for treatment, according to the World Health Organization and local health facilities.

Yet since the crossing reopened on Feb. 2, the numbers going in and out have been far fewer than the promised 100 per day.

Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories said in a statement Sunday on X that about 320 patients and escorts have exited and around 320 Palestinians have entered — half the expected figure.

The moment Imran and her family learned they had permission to return, they raced to pack. Among the several conditions they had to follow was to bring only one suitcase each. They kept packing and repacking, weighing every item’s significance against its necessity.

By 2 a.m. on Feb. 6, they assembled at a meeting area in the city of El Arish and boarded a bus to the crossing. The distance between the two sites is fewer than 35 miles, but because of various delays they didn’t arrive until 7 a.m. They entered a hall where they met about two dozen people, as well as personnel from the Egyptian Red Crescent, who distributed water and gift bags.

“It felt human,” Imran said.

Palestinians who returned to Gaza through the Rafah border crossing arrive at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.

(Abdallah F.s. Alattar / Anadolu / Getty Images)

It would be the last moment of kindness she would encounter for the rest of her journey.

The group stayed in the hall for hours, waiting for authorization. Permission eventually arrived at 3:10 p.m. and everyone was told to get on a bus. They performed Al-Asr — afternoon prayers — before they got on.

“We were tired, but hopeful,” Imran said.

Imran had traveled to Egypt on April 27, 2024, leaving behind three sons, six daughters and 28 grandchildren so she and Duaa could accompany Adel Imran for medical treatment. Medical records reviewed by The Times show he has a cardiac condition that required open-heart surgery, a procedure Gaza’s shattered healthcare system could no longer provide.

In Egypt, Imran and Duaa rarely left Adel Imran’s side — managing appointments, following doctors’ instructions and helping him through recovery, even as they watched Israel’s onslaught obliterate the enclave and their family members speak of the deprivation they experienced.

“Sometimes I didn’t eat in Egypt, just to feel solidarity with them,” Imran said.

Her husband said his lowest moment in Egypt came when rumors spread that those who left the enclave could never return.

“I just wished I could be back there,” he said. “I thought if it couldn’t happen, I wanted to be buried in El Arish, as close as possible to home.”

Palestinians who returned to Gaza through the Rafah border crossing meet loved ones at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.

(Abdallah F.s. Alattar / Anadolu / Getty Images
)

The bus stopped at a checkpoint and the returnees crossed through a barbed-wire-lined passageway to the Gaza side of the Rafah terminal. It was staffed by Palestinian Authority border and custom agents, who inspected everyone’s suitcases while being supervised by monitors from the European Union Border Assistance Mission.

“They started taking things: cosmetics, perfume, headphones,” Imran said. They poured out water bottles and counted the money each person had, preventing anyone from bringing in more than around 2,000 Israel shekels, the equivalent of $645.

The three new phones the family bought were also flagged; the European monitors told them if they wanted to bring them in they would have to give up their old phones, which had copies of Adel Imran’s medical records and CT scans, not to mention contacts and pictures from their time in Egypt. The monitors also tried to confiscate four power banks and chargers.

“I screamed at them that we’re going to ruins, where there’s no electricity. How could we charge our phones?” Imran said, her voice getting tighter at the memory of the encounter. The monitor finally allowed one charger and one pair of headphones. The power bank was a no-go; neither was a toy Imran bought for her 7-year-old grandson, Adel.

“I shouted. I tried to argue. It was useless,” Imran said. She watched as their belongings were tossed into a basket.

“Like it was all garbage.”

By sunset, the search was done, but the group were directed to a second checkpoint. Adel Imran was transported in a golf cart. His wife and daughter walked.

This checkpoint was run by the Popular Forces, an Israel-backed anti-Hamas militia operating in southeast Rafah whose members are accused of looting aid, gang activity and links to the extremist group Islamic State. (The group’s leader has denied the allegations.)

Israel has provided the militia and its allies with weapons, funds and logistical support, in an attempt to promote the Popular Forces as an alternative governing body to Hamas.

A bus arrived, and the group rode on it for more than an hour, two vehicles flanking them, before reaching another inspection point.

In earlier crossings, returnees complained of intimidation and harsh treatment by the Popular Forces, but Imran said they did not harass her when they searched belongings. They also tried to persuade her to stay in the part of Gaza under the group’s control.

When the search concluded, the group walked once more in the darkness.

“You couldn’t see anything, and it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere, like in a desert. But I could smell Gaza’s air,” Imran said.

They arrived at yet another checkpoint, this one with Israeli security officers, who called out the names of the returnees on loudspeakers.

Palestinian experience emotional reunions in Khan Yunis after being able to use the long-closed Rafah border crossing connecting Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

(Abdallah F.s. Alattar / Anadolu / Getty Images)

Some were hand-searched, while others were brought in for interrogations, including Adel Imran, who was asked about names and addresses of family members. Duaa was also held back for questioning.

“The soldiers told me to go and leave my daughter behind, but I refused,” Imran said.

Finally, Duaa emerged and the Israeli security personnel — some of them masked — photographed her and Imran.

A United Nations bus came to transport returnees past the so-called Yellow Line, an armistice boundary created after the ceasefire that separates portions of Gaza controlled by Hamas and Israel. It was 10:30 p.m.

The bus rumbled its way through the moonscape Gaza had become, arriving at Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Yunis, where people assembled to meet their loved ones.

Greeting Imran when she disembarked were her sons. Her daughters and grandchildren had waited as well, but by the time the bus arrived they had gone home to bed.

More than 35 hours after Imran left El Arish, she was home, or whatever was left of it: Her house, after all, was long gone, with sand-swirled tents pitched where buildings once stood.

She gazed at her grandson Adel as he weaved his way around the fabric and rope of the tent. He was happy his grandparents and aunt were back, though a bit disappointed his gift from Egypt was left behind.

People assist Palestinian artist Yazeed Abu Jarad as he creates a sand sculpture with the message “Welcome, Ramadan” in Khan Yunis on February 17, 2026, a day before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

(Doaa Albaz / AFP/Getty Images)

The family was able to return because of the ceasefire, but Gaza is not at peace.

At least 601 Palestinians have been killed and 1,607 others wounded in Israeli attacks since the truce took effect, according to Gazan authorities. Israel says that its attacks are in response to Hamas’ violations of the agreement and that four of its soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire began.

But for Imran, none of that mattered.

“I feel like I came back to life,” Imran said. “Gaza is home. Whatever happened to it, I love being back here with all my family.”