IRISH-PALESTINIAN MAN Zak Hania has reunited with his family in Dublin Airport today, after what he has described as seven months of “hell” in Gaza.
In emotional scenes, Hania embraced his wife Batoul and their children. Batoul and the children were able to get out of Gaza last November, but her husband was forced to stay behind – since then she has been campaigning for his safe passage to Ireland.
It’s been a long journey for the professional translator, as he has arrived in Dublin from Rafah (a city in Southern Gaza) via Cairo in Egypt.
Yesterday, before embarking on the last leg of his journey Hania told RTÉ News: “I’m delighted. I thank God that I survived, I really can’t believe that I am safe now and I survived this but it’s a tough experience, very very tough. Especially because I left a lot of loved ones behind and that’s a hard thing to go through.”
Zak also described the conditions in Rafah:
It’s beyond imagination. In the last seven months we lived constantly under the noise and sounds of drones, fighter jets, bombardment, artillery and shells those sounds are constant 24 hours,” he said.
“Can you imagine for living seven months under all this fear and terror you’re just hearing the bombs and you don’t know where the target is… and living this for seven months, it’s something very, very difficult and very tough.
He said people struggled to find water to wash and to drink and that he still feared for his sisters and the rest of his extended family in Gaza.
Here are pictures taken at Dublin airport today of the family’s reunion:
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