She arrived in a wheelchair with only a handbag for luggage.
“Mama, mama,” cried Sherin Alsabbagh, running to envelop her 75-year-old mother in the arrivals hall at Dublin Airport on Friday morning. The two women clung to each other, sobbing with joy and relief. Friends and supporters waited to shower the new arrival with bunches of spring flowers.
It had taken 17 months and an odyssey through five countries to rescue the widowed Najwa Alsabbagh from Gaza. A pale circle visible on her ring finger as she hugged her daughter bore testament to some of what the retired teacher has suffered.
When she left her home in Gaza City earlier this week, on a cart pulled by a motorbike because the Israeli authorities insisted she had to be visible on the journey, she was allowed to bring only one change of clothes. No money, no souvenirs and no jewellery were permitted.
Along with the wedding ring she entrusted to a friend, she left behind her son and grandchildren in the bomb-shattered home they had shared as well as the graves of her sisters killed in the Israeli bombardment.
“Thank God I’m here,” Najwa said in the Palestinian dialect of Arabic translated by Sherin, an Irish citizen who has been living in this country for more than 15 years. “I’m very grateful to the Irish Government and happy to be here in Ireland – no violence, no air strikes,” she said, wiping her tears, before Sherin took her home to Ballaghaderreen in Co Roscommon. On the front of Najwa’s coat hung a laminated badge stating her name and country of final destination.
She was one of 23 Gazans who flew with Department of Foreign Affairs officials from Amman in Jordan, via Istanbul, to Dublin after arduous land journeys through the Kram Shaman border crossing and across Israel. Other members of the travelling group were students who have qualified for the Ireland-Palestine Scholarship Programme.
“I’m happy to see Sherin, my daughter, and all the friends who supported her through the campaign to bring me here,” Najwa said, “but I’m so worried about my son. My happiness is not complete because he and his family are still behind in Gaza.
“Life is very, very difficult in Gaza. Every day, every hour – death.”
Two of Najwa’s sisters have been killed in the onslaught as well as 11 nieces and nephews, three grandnieces and two sisters-in-law.
Sherin applied in October 2023, when the bombardment started in response to Hamas’s murderous incursion into Israel, for an Irish visa to bring her mother to Ballaghaderreen, where she works as an English tutor and translator.
In February 2024, Ireland granted her permission subject to Israel allowing her to leave Gaza. By the time that approval came in May, Israel had shut the borders and nobody was getting out.
After a ceasefire began in January, Sherin was informed that the Israeli authorities had withdrawn approval for her mother to leave.
“An organisation called Gisha, which works in Israel to get Palestinians out, has been helping me,” Sherin said.
Israel broke the ceasefire last month and is imposing a blockade of food and humanitarian aid on Gaza.
On October 7th, 2023, Hamas and other Palestinian militants killed 1,200 people in Israel, including 36 children, and abducted 251 others. Since then Israel has killed more than 50,000 people in Gaza, including at least 15,000 children.
