GAZA (Middle East Eye) – Following months of waiting, Khaldiya Abumustafa finally got a permit from the Zionist regime allowing her to leave Gaza City to enter the occupied West Bank and undergo eye surgery, accompanied by her husband.
Excited to regain the ability to see properly - as a result of medical treatment not available in the Gaza Strip - Khaldiya arrived with her husband Hassan Abumustafa at the Erez border on the morning of 24 November 2021.
When they reached the other side of the crossing - the only land crossing for Palestinians who want to move between Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory - Khaldiya was asked to wait in the hall, while her husband was called for interrogation.
Around 15 hours had passed before a Zionist officer entered the hall where she was losing hope to show up for the hospital’s appointment, and ordered her to go back home without her husband.
“Your husband is staying with us - he is under arrest,” the officer told her.
Hassan, who had already received an exit permit and a security approval by the regime authorities to cross the Erez, was surprised to be informed that he would be prosecuted over allegations of “belonging to a terrorist organization”.
Following several interrogations and court sessions, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
On Tuesday, after serving his term, Hassan was released and went back to his family in a Khan Younis refugee camp, in the southern Gaza Strip.
Khaldiya, however, has yet to undergo eye surgery.
“My wife has a damaged cornea. She needed to undergo a corneal transplant urgently so that her condition would not exacerbate. And since it was hard to do it in Gaza, we started the necessary procedures to obtain a medical referral for a hospital in the West Bank,” Hassan told Middle East Eye on the second day of his release.
“We got an Israeli permit from the first attempt, and we immediately headed to Erez.”
Patients who receive exit permits to receive medical treatment in the occupied Palestinian territories are allowed one companion to accompany them - though minors may encounter more difficulties in obtaining permits, which often results in children travelling alone without their parents.