Aug 7 — At least 130 Ukrainian citizens remain in the Gaza Strip, waiting for evacuation for over a year, including children, said human rights centre ZMINA, referring to the stories of two Ukrainian women.

In June last year, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East noted that due to ongoing restrictions on humanitarian access, residents of the Gaza Strip were facing “desperate levels” of hunger.

“My son sometimes communicates with my daughter via short text messages. She just says: “Today we had a jar of beans for lunch, and then we found flour and baked some bread,” Olena Yelmina told ZMINA, describing the situation in Gaza.

Olena lives in Kharkiv. In 2013, her three children and her husband visited Palestine to see their relatives. After visiting the family, her husband refused to return the children to Ukraine. A couple divorced.

When the Israeli-Palestinian war escalated in 2023, two of Olena’s older sons were able to evacuate, but her father did not allow her underage daughter to board the evacuation flight. Currently, he agrees to his daughter’s departure, is ready to accompany the child to Ukraine himself, and has all the permits for evacuation and entry into Ukraine.

Iryna Kharara, another woman who shared her story, said she now lives in Germany with her younger children, but her family used to live in the Gaza Strip. 

In November 2023, her husband and two sons were caught in an Israeli bombing. After the attack, her husband and older son had been killed. Only her middle son, Zakariia, survived, suffering burns to 25% of his body and a broken thigh bone.

After, the family planned to evacuate, but Israeli authorities simply removed part of the family from the evacuation lists. Iryna left as an escort for her children, while Zakariia and his sister Sherin were of over 18 at the time and were not included in the lists.

According to Iryna, the first evacuations carried out by Ukraine until March 2024 went well. Evacuated people lived in hotels in Egypt and then went to Ukraine. However, after March 2024, the Ukrainian side did not carry out any evacuations.

Olena also said that for a year she has been appealing to the Ukrainian consulates in Israel and Palestine, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, the Ombudsman’s Office, and the President, writing numerous letters, but the answers are formal and standard: “Those who wanted to leave have already done it.”

Both women are in touch with other Ukrainian families whose relatives cannot evacuate. They say that the lists now include more than 130 people.

In March 2024, Ukrainian intelligence evacuated 47 Ukrainian citizens from the Gaza Strip.

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