Polish national sees staying in Gaza as part of Palestinian struggle

KHAN YOUNIS – A Gazan man who could escape the war thanks to his Polish citizenship has instead chosen to stay in his damaged home in Khan Younis, framing his decision as part of a historic struggle for Palestinian rights in their homeland.

Abdul Raouf al-Farra's name was on a list of people authorized to leave the bombarded Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing to Egypt but said his emotional bond to Gaza as a place, a people and a cause prevented him from leaving.

"My soul is attached to this homeland. This homeland is where I grew up, where I was born," he said. "This is my country and they (the Israelis) have no option but to leave our land."

Al-Farra's apartment in Khan Younis, a town in the southern part of the strip, suffered minor damage from an air strike on Saturday on the nearby al-Saqqa mosque, which was left without walls, its yellow dome still standing atop an empty shell.

"They have targeted mosques, targeted hospitals. There is no safe place in the Gaza Strip. They think that this way they can displace our people. Our people will stand firm on this land. Our people will protect this land," he said.

The war began when Hamas fighters rampaged through southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking 240 hostages, according to Israeli figures.

In response, Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza and launched a military assault that has killed more than 11,000 people, according to Gazan health officials, made two-thirds of the population homeless and caused a humanitarian disaster.

A few hundred people with foreign citizenships and some seriously wounded patients have left Gaza through the Rafah crossing, the only ones allowed out since the war started.

Al-Farra acquired Polish citizenship in 2010, through his marriage to a Polish woman, with whom he had children. The couple are separated and his ex-wife and their children, now grown-up, live abroad. He has since married a Palestinian woman.

He said his children would prefer him to be safe outside of Gaza, but he had other close relatives in the enclave as well as a commitment to the Palestinian cause.

"I will not leave the Gazan people. I will not leave my family, my mother, my siblings, my neighbors, my friends," he said.

"I believe in the justice of this cause. Our people have been fighting to regain their rights for 75 years," he said, referring to the creation of Israel and mass displacement of Palestinians in 1948.

Israel contests the assertion that it drove out Palestinians in 1948, highlighting that Arab armies attacked it the day after it was established, rejecting a United Nations partition plan that would have created a Palestinian state alongside Israel.