Fouad arrived in Gaza in early September for a family visit, after a 10-year absence. The last time he was in the enclave, the retired French civil servant – whose name has been changed –had been stuck there for several months due to problems linked to the Israeli blockade in force since 2007. The gates of the enclave closed on him once again after Hamas's attack on October 7, when the group's fighters temporarily seized control of parts of Israel's territory, carrying out massacres and killing over 1,400 people. Since then, the Jewish state has laid siege to and bombarded Gaza, where more than 5,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the territory's health ministry, which is run by Hamas.
Thanks to negotiations led in particular by the United States, Fouad thought he would be able to leave on October 11 via the Rafah crossing in the south, toward Egypt. However, he was forced to turn back after the terminal was bombed that day by Israeli aircraft. Ten days later, a second attempt also failed. Since October 7, no one has been allowed to leave the enclave, with the exception of four hostages released by Hamas, two US nationals and two elderly Israeli women.
"We're in contact with around 50 of the French nationals concerned, not including their dependents," a diplomatic source told Le Monde. French President Emmanuel Macron raised the subject with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah El-Sissi, who reportedly assured him that he was ready to facilitate the exit of French citizens from Gaza. "From morning to night, we are in contact with them and are doing everything we can to support them in these very, very difficult times," said Nicolas Kassianides, the French consul in Jerusalem.
"The last time I contacted the consulate was yesterday, by message," said one French citizen who preferred to remain anonymous, from a packed UN center. "We're waiting but it's difficult, there were two bombings close by today." Without the Internet and worried about the rest of his family who stayed in Gaza City, he is living under very precarious conditions. Sanitary facilities are overcrowded, water is in short supply, and bread is harder and harder to find. He just wants to get his children to safety, he said, but he knows he's not a priority: His wife doesn't have French nationality. "We're on a second list," he explained.
From France, Fouad's son denounced the "disastrous" assistance provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs crisis unit. "They clearly give priority to repatriating French citizens from Israel, with no attention paid to French citizens in Gaza." On October 11, as he moved heaven and earth to try to get his father out of the enclave, he was deeply shocked to hear Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna declare on radio station Franceinfo that she estimated the number of French people in the enclave to be "a few dozen, no more," and that "to my knowledge, none of them, for the moment at least, have asked to leave Gaza."
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