Zak Hania, the Irish-Palestinian man who spent months trapped in the Gaza Strip, dropped to his knees and kissed the ground as he arrived in Dublin Airport on Saturday, reunited with his family for the first time since November.
On walking through the arrival gates, Mr Hania tearfully embraced each of his Irish-born sons, Mazen, Ismael, Ahmed and Nour. There were shouts of “free, free Palestine” from a crowd of friends and supporters, some of whom were waving Palestine flags and wearing keffiyehs. Mr Hania also shared a moment with his wife, Batoul, who arrived at the airport with her children a short time before.
“I don’t know how to feel, I am happy to see my kids, and all my dear friends,” Mr Hania said, speaking to reporters moments after being reunited with his family. “It’s a very strange feeling ... my feelings are frozen, are numbing. We’ve been in a hell for the last seven months. Bombs, missiles, day and night.
“We are so exhausted, the people of Gaza, very exhausted and tired. It’s a very, very hard experience. Thank God I am back and I feel safe, with my family, and my great friends.”
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Mr Hania asked for a moment to kiss the ground, to pay his respects to “the land that I love”, and to thank God that he survived Israel’s bombardment of his homeland.
“I don’t have enough words to thank the Irish people,” he said. “They are the greatest. They are amazing. I love Ireland, I love this country, I love my friends. I love you all, for standing for justice.
“Ireland is in my heart, as is Palestine. I don’t have enough words to thank you, and to thank all the people [who] are going to streets, and being in the streets for a long time, and all the people who are making every effort to support the people in Gaza, and to support Palestine, trying to stop this brutal genocide.”
Mr Hania said there was a need to end the war in the Gaza Strip. “We need to stop this genocide, thank God I survived this genocide.”
Mr Hania spoke of what he saw in the embattled enclave, before his escape through the Rafah crossing on Tuesday.
“I lost too many people. All my family, my cousin. My friends. My neighbours,” he said, “13,000 kids killed. Babies. I carried them in my hands. They [were] shattered into pieces.”
“I think Israel has taken off their mask, and they are showing their real face. And we are, as human beings, we are showing our true humanity, and determination to stop this crime, and to be united, all together, all of humanity, to be united, to stop this crime.
“My heart is full of pain ... I was suppressing my feelings, and all the people there, because we don’t have time to mourn our dead people,” he said, wiping tears. “I am happy that I am alive. I left loved ones, and I lost loved ones. That makes me sad ... I’m not feeling the normal way, I’m not in the normal state of emotions and state of mind.”
Mr Hania’s wife and sons left Gaza in November, and have been campaigning for his safe passage for months. Mr Hania was denied permission to leave Gaza through the Rafah crossing in November for unexplained reasons.
After a fundraising effort led by friends and family in Ireland, Mr Hania was able to leave the war zone on Tuesday. His passage from Gaza was facilitated by an Egyptian travel company, Ms Hania said, and cost several thousand euro.
Mazen, Mr Hania eldest son, recalled how he wept in Dublin Airport months earlier, having left his father behind in Gaza. This, he said through tears, was a happier occasion. “Today, it’s really happy, I can’t believe this.”
Before Mr Hania’s arrival, Ms Hania said that life in Ireland without her husband was difficult. “I don’t sleep well, even the kids, they worry about ... when they hear news every now and then about Rafah, about invading Rafah, really worried about their father and what will he face there.”
While still in Gaza, the Hania family evacuated from their home in Gaza City, to Khan Younis, in the south. “[The] evacuation from north to south, it was like going through hell. Escaping under the bombardments, under the threatening of all the soldier, pointing their rifles against us. It was really horrible,” Ms Hania said.
“My little son, he’s still, to this moment, has bad dreams and nightmares about what we had to go through,” she said, gesturing to her son Nour, who was holding a bouquet of flowers for his father.
Their safety, she said, is bittersweet. “Between me and Zak, we lost about 40 persons of our families. And every single family in Gaza is [in] this situation.
“Our celebration is really incomplete today, it lacks ... you know, the safety of our people there. Our sisters, cousins, everybody there, all the people in Gaza.”
Ms Hania said that one day she would like to return to Gaza. “Of course, it’s our country. I feel it’s like my second home here, I really appreciate what all our friends, Irish friends, and Irish Government efforts to get us out,” she said.
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