Kamal al-Kafarna knew he had to get his family out of the Gaza Strip when he heard his five-year-old son Elias singing "When I am a martyr, I will go to heaven."

Kafarna believes the boy heard the song on the streets of Beit Hanun, a village near the Israeli border that saw heavy fighting during the devastating turn-of-the-year war that killed more than 1400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.

"He doesn't even know what the words mean," the 37-year-old engineer and project manager says. "But in a few years he won't be innocent anymore."

Kafarna is a US citizen, an adamant pacifist who has never taken part in any political or violent activities, and he has been accepted into an advanced project management programme in Russia.

But like countless dual national Palestinians, leaving the besieged territory is a nightmare for Kafarna and his family who are trapped in Gaza due to Israeli closures in place for over two years and Western consular requirements.

Catch-22 situation

Elias and his six-year-old brother Qasem have to renew their US passports in order to get visas to leave Gaza, but because of the requirements of the US consulate in Jerusalem they must leave Gaza in order to renew their passports.

"It's a Catch-22," said Sari Bashi, the director of the Gisha Legal Centre for Freedom of Movement, which has petitioned an Israeli court to demand that the Kafarna family be allowed to travel to the consulate in Jerusalem.

"Israel won't even consider the request unless it comes from a foreign diplomat. So in the case of the Kafarna family, the military won't consider the request unless it is made by the US consulate — which refuses to do so."

In the two years since the Islamist Hamas movement seized power in Gaza, Israel has sealed the impoverished enclave off from all but vital humanitarian aid and strictly limited movement in and out of the territory.

Scholarship recipients

Last year, however, when it was reported that several US Fulbright scholarship recipients were unable to leave, Israel began allowing some students with dual nationality and scholarships to depart for study abroad.

However, it requires their foreign consulates to provide a formal request and a diplomatic escort while they are in transit in Israel, which Bashi says makes Western countries "gatekeepers" and has trapped people like the Kafarnas.

The US consulate declined to comment on the Kafarna case or on the subject of diplomatic escorts, saying only that it was prevented from providing more than limited consular services inside Gaza because of security concerns.

The US State Department has not allowed any of its staff to travel to Gaza since a deadly roadside bomb attack on a US convoy there in 2003.

The Israeli military also declined to comment on the escorts.

A spokesperson for the British consulate, which has provided escorts for at least 32 students and dependents, said the "transit is gruelling for the students and our staff."

Frayed tempers

"Typically, we coordinate the exit with the Israeli authorities several weeks in advance, but on the appointed day there is often a breakdown in the Israeli system and much tension as the students are put through long delays and security checks," she said.

"It is usually at least a 12-hour day for all involved and tempers can fray."

The United States and the European Union have both called on Israel to ease the closures to facilitate post-war reconstruction in Gaza.

But Bashi says that by bowing to the diplomatic escort requirement they become part of the closure regime because they set strict conditions for when they will send requests and provide assistance.

The US consulate, for example, only provides assistance to students travelling to the United States or a third country on a US government-funded scholarship, or private students with US visas.

Acting as gatekeepers

"These diplomats may be well-meaning in wanting to help some people to leave, but by agreeing to this procedure they effectively act as gatekeepers and give Israel a green light in trapping folks in Gaza," she says.

"In many, many cases, we asked the Europeans and the Americans to put in requests on behalf of students seeking to study — and the answer was 'no', unless they had government scholarships."

And of the more than 1000 students who need to leave Gaza to study abroad, only a few dozen have government scholarships from Western countries, Bashi said.

Kafarna is meanwhile doing what he can to keep the bureaucratic wheels turning, including applying for a new Russian visa after his first one expired earlier in June.

"I want my kids to live this period of their lives outside of this situation," he said. "I have lived in this environment and survived but I cannot guarantee they will."

AFP

The beggar gauntlet Rebekah Kendal reckons that begging is bad for SA because it fosters a culture of dependency.

Visit our politics page Need the latest political news, features, interviews and profiles? Visit our dedicated page...

Behind closed doors Rebekah Kendal reckons that the real losers in the Percy saga are victims of domestic abuse.