1 of 7 Ronza AbuJayyab, a 29yearold Palestinian engineer, was recognized as a refugee by the Brazilian government in October this year Photo: Ana Carolina Moreno/TV Globo Ronza AbuJayyab, a 29yearold Palestinian engineer, was recognized as a refugee in October recognized as a refugee by the Brazilian government this year Photo: Ana Carolina Moreno/TV Globo
October 7, the first day that 29yearold Palestinian mechatronics engineer Ronza AbuJayyab could breathe a little easier last Saturday (4) was when her phone rang and her entire family was present on the other side. Ronza’s parents, two brothers, a sister, grandmother and sisterinlaw lived in a neighborhood in the south of Gaza City and had been waiting in the south of the enclave for more than two weeks, hoping to escape as quickly as possible from the recent war between Israel and the Hamas, which ended a month this week and has already claimed more than ten thousand lives.
“I had contact with my family for half an hour. I heard the voices of my mother, my father, my brother Zuhdi, my brother Ahmed, my sister [Lozan]and I was able to talk to them,” she said in an interview with g1He explained that in the last 27 days he has only been able to receive a few short text messages due to weak internet signal.
According to Ronza, they left one of their cellphones to charge last Saturday and noticed that the communication signal was stronger. They risked a call that came from Rafah, on the GazaEgypt border, and the engineer’s phone rang in the southern zone of São Paulo at around 9:30 a.m. local time.
“I told them not to be afraid, that I would do anything to get them to stay here with me,” she remembers. “But in reality they were the strong ones and I was the weakest. I don’t know who comforted whom. They told me not to be afraid, that they are fine and that they will be fine and that we will still be together. They said, ‘Pray for us in the coming days,'” said Ronza AbuJayyab, a Palestinian refugee in Brazil
She also has a third brother and sister who are currently studying medicine in Egypt and are safe.
2 of 7 Old photo of the AbuJayyab family, taken by Ronza, shows the parents in front and their three brothers and two sisters; With the exception of a brother, a sister and Ronza, everyone is stuck in the south of the Gaza Strip, waiting for the chance to enter Egypt Photo: Personal archive. Old photo of the AbuJayyab family, taken by Ronza, shows his parents, in front, and his three brothers and two sisters; All of them, with the exception of a brother, a sister and Ronza, are stuck in the south of the Gaza Strip, waiting for the chance to enter Egypt Photo: Personal Archives
The aid is ongoing as Ronza’s family seeks refuge in a crowded space and in precarious conditions since they were forced to leave the coastal village of Al Zahra, south of Gaza City, after Israel announced a bomb attack that destroyed more than 20 buildings in the area Surrounding areas destroyed were the family home, including Al Ahli Arab Hospital, where Ronza’s mother gave birth to her and her two male brothers.
“About 7,000 people live in this area. They gave them 15 minutes to leave the house and then dropped lots of bombs. 25 buildings were destroyed. “My family slept on the streets and then fled to the south of the Gaza Strip,” she said, who particularly cares for her 88yearold grandmother Refa.
Now they struggle to access water and food, sleep in precarious conditions and rely on a small solar panel to charge all of the family’s cell phones.
In order to prevent one of her relatives from suffering the same fate as Refa’s husband and Ronza’s paternal grandfather, who died when her father was just three years old, the Palestinian refugee in Brazil is trying to initiate a family reunification process with the Itamaraty so that the AbuJayyab family can be included in the list of citizens eligible to enter Egypt. According to the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, 34 people are on the current list.
3 of 7 Ronza shows a photo of her father Sameer and her mother Nawal, saved on her phone Photo: Ana Carolina Moreno/TV Globo Ronza shows a photo of her father Sameer and her mother Nawal, saved on her phone Photo: Ana Carolina Moreno /TV Globo
Operation Return in Peace
Between October 11 and 22, the federal government transported 1,413 people from Israel to Brazil as part of Operation Returning in Peace. On November 2, another 32 people were in the West Bank, crossing the border with Jordan, then flying from the south to America. The vast majority of the people rescued are Brazilians, but according to Itamaraty, on the nine flights so far, three Bolivians, one Palestinian and a Jordanian transported.
A small plane has already flown to Europe and is awaiting approval to allow Brazilians in Gaza to enter Egypt, where they will be transported to the capital Cairo and from there to Brazil.
According to Edgard Raoul, the Brazilian lawyer who is working with the Brazilian government to try to save the AbuJayyab family, the help they are asking for is to add the seven relatives to the list of 34 people filed with the Brazilian government have applied for repatriation. “We don’t want to burden the Brazilian state, we just want the Brazilian state to include these Palestinians in the evacuation group,” explains the lawyer, who has already sponsored Ronza and Akram to Brazil and is still hosting them in his home. .
The process they want to set in motion is that of family reunification, which is provided for in the legislation to allow citizens of other countries to enter a country if they already have a close relative officially resident there.
“This group of 34 people includes Brazilians and about ten Palestinians who are family members of Brazilians,” says Raoul. “We hope that the Brazilian government does not have to worry about welcoming her here, her family is already here and I can support them here.” (Edgard Raoul, family lawyer)
According to him, the Brazilian government has spoken to the family to analyze the situation. “But their urgency is not our urgency. They have their time. It’s difficult for her. “It was very difficult to get the Americans out of there anyway,” says the lawyer about the negotiations to include the Brazilian list in the daily list of citizens eligible to leave Gaza.
Ronza and Akram crossed this border in 2017, shortly after they got married and decided to try a safer life outside Gaza.
“At first we wanted to go to finish our master’s degree. But then we saw that we wouldn’t be able to raise a family and be safe in the Gaza Strip. My father is a doctor, he decided to support and build up the people there.” His life there. But every day we saw what it was like. It’s dangerous and terrible to live there, so we decided to look for a safer place to raise our family. (Ronza AbuJayyab)
4 of 7 Photo of Ronza during the graduation ceremony at the Faculty of Mechatronics, AlAzhar University in Gaza Photo: Personal Archive Photo of Ronza during the graduation ceremony at the Faculty of Mechatronics, AlAzhar University in Gaza Photo: Personal archive
The decision was influenced by memories of the three wars they both faced since they were born in Gaza, already as refugees because the family was forced to move to Yasur, a town south of the current border between Syria and Israeli territory leave. just over 150 kilometers from the Gaza Strip.
The most terrible war they saw up close was that of 2014, which lasted 51 days and left 2,251 Palestinians dead (including 551 children and 299 women) and 72 Israeli casualties, including 66 soldiers, five civilians and one Child.
At this point, both had already completed their undergraduate studies and were aiming for a master’s degree. They received scholarships to complete their postgraduate studies in Cyprus, but were unable to move there and eventually moved to Egypt, where they dropped out of their master’s studies.
5 of 7 Ronza in a laboratory where she worked as a mechatronics engineer before she managed to move to Brazil Photo: Personal Archive Ronza in a laboratory where she worked as a mechatronics engineer before she managed to move to Brazil Photo: Personal archive
But crossing the Rafah border, which separates the southern Gaza Strip and Egypt, was the first hurdle. Unlike other borders between countries, the border crossing is not open every day. It was closed for 90% of the year in 2017, allowing passenger movement only 36 of the 365 days, according to monitoring by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The solution for them was to camp at the border in protest with other Palestinians for almost two weeks until the border was opened for just over three days and they were able to cross the border with about ten thousand other people.
“It was a very difficult situation. It was very cold at night and we slept outside. You don’t need more than $100 to travel from Rafah to Cairo, but there were people who charged more than $1,500 to cross the border and travel. It’s very expensive and difficult for people.”
When they settled in Egypt, they tried for the first time to obtain a visa to travel to Brazil. However, the application was rejected because they had no permanent residence, as the neighboring country does not recognize Palestinians as refugees.
The bride and groom stayed in Egypt for a year and a half, but then decided to move to Turkey in search of better conditions. They lived there for three and a half years, albeit under unfavorable conditions. “There are more than three million Syrian refugees in Turkey, they have no way of taking in more refugees.”
They finally received a visa to enter Brazil as tourists through the Brazilian embassy in Istanbul.
6 of 7 Ronza AbuJayyab and her husband Akram in the apartment where they have been living since August 2022 in the south zone of São Paulo Photo: Ana Carolina Moreno/TV Globo Ronza AbuJayyab and her husband Akram in the apartment where they live since August 2022 in the zone south of São Paulo Photo: Ana Carolina Moreno/TV Globo
They landed at Guarulhos International Airport on August 9, 2022. “We did research in Brazil and found that refugees are very important to them,” explains Ronza, who confirmed this impression on her first trip from home.
“The first week I went to the supermarket and looked for a product. I didn’t speak a word of Portuguese and tried to use the translator. Some women came and started talking to me. They asked what I wanted to cook, what ingredients I needed and they helped me. They were very, very nice, that was my first impression.”
The engineer has been taking Portuguese courses since her arrival and is currently volunteering in the robotics laboratory of a private school in the southern zone of the capital, where, although she has not yet found a job in the field, she has the opportunity to practice the language and live with Brazilians.
“Brazil is very beautiful for us, all the people we have met so far have been friendly. I feel very happy, safe and comfortable with the people. Sometimes it is dangerous, but Brazil is our friend,” says Ronza AbuJayyab
The couple also praised the flexibility of the refugee status recognition process, which took just over a year. “If we had lived in Turkey for ten years, we would still not have the right to permanent residence,” compares Akram.
7 of 7 For 15 months, the Palestinian couple has been trying to restart their lives by learning Portuguese so they can work in São Paulo Photo: Ana Carolina Moreno/TV Globo For 15 months, the Palestinian couple has been trying to restart their lives start living with us and learning Portuguese so that they can work in São Paulo Photo: Ana Carolina Moreno/TV Globo
Now the two are trying to ensure the same level of security for the family, who remain stuck in Gaza. Akram only has his sister there because his parents and brothers live in the USA and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The sister was actually in the final stages of a family reunification process to move to the United States, but it was interrupted due to the war.
Edgard Raoul explains that under Brazilian law, Ronza and Akram can apply for Brazilian citizenship in three years. An alternative they are considering is whether this period can be accelerated so that their family’s status changes to “relatives of Brazilian citizens.”
The process for these and other families would also be made easier if the Brazilian government decides to apply to the situation of the Palestinians the same humanitarian visa program that has already been implemented at other times for citizens of Haiti, Venezuela, Burkina Faso and Afghanistan.
The urgency, the lawyer said, was due to the risk that the couple he was receiving could observe the death of relatives from a distance. Since the beginning of the war, one of the attacks killed a close friend of the family who even attended their wedding ceremony.
“If we cannot save the family, they will want to return to Gaza. If her family dies because of the world’s inaction, there is no reason for her to live anywhere in the world. Your life only makes sense if your family is alive.” (Edgard Raoul)