8 hours ago
10
Every nook and corner of Rawan Alkatari’s home in Aalst, a city in Belgium, is filled with pictures that remind her of her family in Gaza.
“People who come to visit my home say it is beautiful. But I’ll see it as beautiful when it is filled with the sound of my children,” she said.
The 30-year-old came to Belgium shortly before Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023, having been granted asylum.
But her husband Osama and three children – Lujayn, Lama and Omar, aged 14, 12 and eight, respectively – have been unable to join her, despite Belgium having approved their family reunification visas.
“My husband and children got their family reunification visas approved [by Belgium] on October 1, 2024, but remain stuck in Gaza. Their visas also expire in October this year,” she told Al Jazeera.
“Right now, my family’s documents are at the Belgian embassy in Cairo in Egypt. Belgium says it has submitted their names for evacuation and is awaiting Israeli approval, while Israel says it hasn’t received anything. So, who is responsible? I honestly don’t know,” she said.
Alkatari is being supported by an Israel-based organisation, which has contacted COGAT, the Israeli army’s aid coordination agency, regarding her case. COGAT told the group in June that a request for her family’s evacuation had not been received, she said, referring to emails seen by Al Jazeera.
Alkatari’s family has been granted visas for Belgium but remain stuck in Gaza [Al Jazeera]Alkatari’s home in Gaza City has been destroyed. Her family has been displaced more than four times. They currently live in an overcrowded encampment in al-Mawasi in Gaza’s Khan Younis. Israel had designated al-Mawasi as a humanitarian safe zone in December 2023, but has repeatedly attacked the area since then.
“Every day, bombs fall around their tents, and they watch people die. They are also living in a miserable tent with not enough food, no medicines and no safe bathrooms,” she said, adding that fever, hepatitis, and skin diseases are rampant in the camp. Rodents, weasels, and snakes crawl around as people sleep, she said.
In Belgium, guilt-stricken and concerned about her family’s plight, she struggles to eat or drink.
“My children beg me to eat. I went out once to get something to eat. I looked at the supermarket and thought, ‘How am I going to eat when they’re hungry?’ My children no longer look the same when I speak to them over video calls. Their faces are pale and yellow from malnutrition. My husband has also aged so much. His hair and beard have turned completely white,” she said.
Why are evacuations being delayed?
The European Union allows asylum seekers who have been granted international protection in any member state to bring their spouse, children and certain other family members under the bloc’s Family Reunification Directive.
In Belgium, one in four visas were given to members of a refugee’s family last year, local broadcaster VRT NWS reported in January. Refugee family reunification visas increased to 5,714 in 2024 from 3,700 in 2023.
But for refugees from Gaza, Belgium can “only provide consular assistance and register on an evacuation list Belgians and foreigners who have a refugee status in Belgium, as well as the members of their nuclear family”, according to the Immigration Department.
Alkatari is not convinced.
“Some families I know have also left for other countries via the Kerem Shalom [crossing] in Israel. So there are options, but there seems to be a clear failure to care for us,” she said, adding that the cases she has heard of include families with Belgian visas and some who have reached other European countries on medical evacuations.
Nearby, 37 people arrived in France on July 11; the French Foreign Ministry said that since January 2025, 292 people from Gaza have been evacuated to the country that borders Belgium.
In early June, in an effort to put pressure on Belgian authorities, Alkatari went on a three-week hunger strike protest outside Belgium’s Foreign Ministry in Brussels.
Several hundred Palestinian families in Gaza waiting to be evacuated to Belgium are stuck in a similar situation, according to local media reports.
In June, a group of lawyers condemned the delay in an open letter published by the Belgian daily La Libre Belgique, addressed to Prime Minister Bart De Wever and Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot.
“The Belgian government continues in fact to do everything in its power to prevent men, women and children caught in the hell of Gaza from being able to join their family members in Belgium,” they said.
Belgium rejects the accusations.
Belgium has evacuated more than 500 people from Gaza, since the war began, via the Rafah border crossing bordering Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said. This group includes Belgian citizens and Palestinians with Belgian refugee status and their lawful partners and children.
“These evacuations had to be halted in May 2024, when the Rafah border crossing was closed. It was not until March 2025 that evacuation operations could resume, this time through the border post of Kerem Shalom and Jordan. Since then, around 40 people have been evacuated,” the spokesperson told Al Jazeera.
Israel closed the Rafah border crossing in May 2024, claiming that it was being used for “terrorist purposes”. In January this year, the crossing was opened for medical evacuations.
Belgium organised medical evacuations in July and December last year as part of a pan-European humanitarian mission, in coordination with the World Health Organization. The patients and caretakers were either evacuated from Egypt or directly from Gaza.
In October 2024, Belgium’s foreign minister said the rules had changed and only Belgians or their core family members would be eligible for evacuation. But this restriction ended last month, “and preparations began for the resumption of evacuations that had been suspended in May 2024”, the spokesperson added, giving no further details.
Asked if Israel is delaying evacuations, the spokesperson said: “A variety of factors continue to cause delays, but efforts are ongoing to find solutions, in close cooperation with all relevant authorities.”
Al Jazeera contacted COGAT for comment but did not receive a response at the time of publishing.
Bram Frouws, director of the Geneva-based Mixed Migration Centre, told Al Jazeera that European countries could create humanitarian channels, issue laissez-passer or emergency visas, and loosen the documentation requirements.
“It’s not impossible, most countries have managed to get Palestinian people that hold dual citizenship of their countries out of Gaza, so with political will, there are possibilities,” he said.
“But I don’t think there is much of that political will in the current political climate in most European countries.”
