Each corner and corner of Rawan Alkatari’s house in Aalst, a city in Belgium, is filled with photos that remind him of his family in Gaza.
“People who come to visit my house say it’s beautiful. But I’m going to see him as beautiful when he is filled with the sound of my children, “she said.
The 30 -year -old came to Belgium shortly before the start of the War of Israel in Gaza in October 2023, having obtained asylum.
But her husband Osama and three children – Lujayn, Lama and Omar, aged 14, 12 and eight, could not join her, although Belgium approved their family reunification visas.
“My husband and my children approved their family reunification visas (by Belgium) on October 1, 2024, but remain stuck in Gaza. Their visas also expire in October this year,” she told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“At the moment, my family’s documents are at the Embassy of Belgian in Cairo in Egypt. Belgium says that it has submitted their names for evacuation and awaits Israeli approval, while Israel said nothing. So, who is responsible? I do not honestly know,” she said.
Alkatari is supported by an organization based in Israel, which contacted Cogat, the Aid Coordination Agency for the Israeli Army, concerning its case. Cogat told the group in June that an evacuation request from his family had not been received, she said, referring to the emails seen by Tel Aviv Tribune.
The house of Alkatari in the city of Gaza was destroyed. His family has been moved more than four times. They are currently living in a overcrowded camp in Al-Mawasi in Khan Younis in Gaza. Israel had appointed Al-Mawasi as a humanitarian security zone in December 2023, but has repeatedly attacked the area since then.
“Each day, the bombs fall around their tents, and they watch people die. They also live in a miserable tent with not enough food, no drugs and no safe bathrooms,” she said, adding that fever, hepatitis and skin diseases are creeping in the camp. Rodents, belets and snakes are crawling while people sleep, she said.
In Belgium, breathtaking and concerned about the difficult situation of her family, she has trouble eating or drinking.
“My children pray to me to eat. I went out once to have something to eat. I looked at the supermarket and I thought, “How will I eat when they are hungry?” My children are no longer alike when I talk to them about video calls.
Why are evacuations delayed?
The European Union authorizes asylum seekers who have obtained international protection in any member state to bring their spouse, their children and certain other family members within the framework of the Bloc family reunification.
In Belgium, one out of four visa was given to family members of a refugee last year, local broadcaster VRT NWS reported in January. The reunification visas of the refugee family increased to 5,714 in 2024, against 3,700 in 2023.
But for the refugees of Gaza, Belgium cannot “provide consular assistance and register on a Belgian and foreign evacuation list which have a refugee status in Belgium, as well as their nuclear family members”, according to the Department of Immigration.
Alkatari is not convinced.
“Some families I know are also part of other countries via Kerem Shalom (crossing) in Israel. So there are options, but there seems to be a clear failure to take care of us,” she said, adding that the cases she heard includes families with Belgian visas and others who have reached other European countries on medical evacuations.
Nearby, 37 people arrived in France on July 11; The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that since January 2025, 292 people from Gaza have been evacuated to the country bordering Belgium.
In early June, in order to put pressure on the Belgian authorities, Alkatari made a three -week demonstration at the hunger strike before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Belgium in Brussels.
Several hundred Palestinian families in Gaza waiting to be evacuated to Belgium are stuck in a similar situation, according to local media.
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 the Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Prevot.
“The Belgian government continues to do everything in its power to prevent men, women and children caught in the hell of Gaza from being able to join family members in Belgium,” they said.
Belgium rejects the accusations.
Belgium has evacuated more than 500 people from Gaza, since the start of the war, through the border crossing of Rafah which limited the Egyptian peninsula of Sinai, said a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This group includes Belgian citizens and Palestinians with a Belgian refugee status and their legal partners and children.
“These evacuations had to be interrupted in May 2024, when the border crossing of Rafah was closed. It was not until March 2025 that evacuation operations could resume, this time through the Kerem Shalom and Jordan border post. Since then, around 40 people have been evacuated,” the spokesman told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Israel closed Rafah’s border post in May 2024, saying that it was used for “terrorist purposes”. In January of this year, the crossing was opened for medical evacuations.
Belgium organized medical evacuations in July and December from last year as part of a pan -European humanitarian mission, in coordination with the World Health Organization. Patients and guards were evacuated from Egypt or directly from Gaza.
In October 2024, the Belgian Foreign Minister said that the rules had changed and that only Belgians or their main family members would be eligible for evacuation. But this restriction ended last month, “and the preparations started to resume evacuations suspended in May 2024,” added the spokesperson, giving no details.
When asked if Israel delays the evacuations, the spokesman said: “A variety of factors continue to cause delays, but efforts are underway to find solutions, in close cooperation with all the authorities concerned.”
Tel Aviv Tribune contacted Cogat to comment but did not receive an answer at the time of publication.
Bram Frouws, director of the Mixte-based Migration Center in Geneva, told Tel Aviv Tribune that European countries could create humanitarian channels, issue a pass or emergency visas and loosen documentation requirements.
“It is not impossible, most countries have succeeded in bringing Gaza out of the Palestinians who hold the double citizenship of their country, therefore with a political will, there are possibilities,” he said.
“But I don’t think there is a large part of this political will in the current political climate in most European countries.”