Jordan Brings Back Nationals Stranded in Gaza for Weeks
(AWP) - The Jordanian ministry of foreign and expatriates’ affairs announced the first evacuation plane carrying 53 nationals who had been evacuated from Gaza arrived at the military Marka airport in the capital Amman.
Sofian al-Qudah, a spokesman for the Jordanian foreign ministry, said the evacuations will be going on if need be and through different ways and means so as to make sure all Jordanian citizens are evacuated from Gaza.
“The Jordanians in Gaza were most probably visiting their family members or their in-laws. We do not ask them what they were doing in Gaza. What counts for us is that they are Jordanian citizens and we have to bring them back home to the kingdom and offer them all help possible,” Qudah noted.
Jordanian who just returned from Gaza have spoken about the tough circumstances they have been through during the past weeks of the war.
“We witnessed 25 days of the war in Gaza. It was so tragic. We have seen nothing but havoc and death. Thank God we have returned home safe,” a Jordanian said.
“We had a business but most of it was lost. The majority of factories and companies have all been lost and huge numbers of people have been thrown into the streets,” he added.
A Jordanian woman who also returned from Gaza spoke of the hard circumstances inside the schools the people sought for protection after the war.
“We were taken to the schools for shelter. The schools belonged to the UNRWA.
All the people were taken there. One school had 7,000 people inside, another 5,000 and a third 5,000. These were three schools that hosted more than 15,000 people,” said Umm Mohamed.
According to the Jordanian foreign ministry, there were 397 nationals whose names were registered to get out of Gaza, out of whom 196 exited the strip on Wednesday.
The ministry said the efforts were going one until all of them are brought out of Gaza back home.