On Monday, a Norwegian flight with 114 Norwegian citizens and people with close connections to Norway landed at Gardermoen. Perhaps Raid Almasri (38) could have been on the plane. He came to Norway in 2007 and lives in Trondheim. Now he is in Khan Younis in the southern part of the Gaza Strip with his wife, who is pregnant, and his two daughters aged two and three. news has contact with him via Messenger. – Right now I am in contact with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and they have offered me assistance to leave Gaza. The problem is that they do not provide assistance to my family, writes Almasri. RARaid Almasri: I have written to them several times that it does not make me human to leave without them. That I would rather die with them in Gaza than leave without them. Yet they write that they cannot do anything about it. Married in 2018 Almasri says that it was back in 2018 that he married his wife in Gaza. The conditions at the time meant that they could not inform Norway that the two had married, he describes. They have since had two children, and Almasri has been back and forth to Gaza to fix documents and passports in order to apply for family immigration to Norway. – When I traveled to Gaza to fix exactly this, the war broke out. RARaid Almasri: What is happening in Gaza is unrealistic. Children with exploded heads, people lying on the ground and grieving families. He contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and describes that it became complicated because they had not previously received the information about his family. Neither the wife nor the children have a visa, Norwegian citizenship or residence permit. The wife has an invalid Palestinian passport, while the daughters have a Palestinian birth certificate. This registration card from the UN aid organization for Palestinian refugees in the Middle East (UNRWA) has been sent by Almasri to news. Photo: Privat On the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ website it is stated that foreign citizens must have a residence permit or a valid visa in order to travel to Norway. This still applies, even if the security situation has changed. “The people whom the Norwegian authorities have helped to get out of Gaza and to whom we have offered assisted departure home to Norway are mainly Norwegian citizens and people with a residence permit in Norway. In addition, they include some parents traveling with minor children who are Norwegian citizens, as well as minor children of Norwegian citizens traveling with siblings who are Norwegian citizens. This is in line with the instructions given by the Ministry of Justice in connection with assisted departure from Gaza”. This is what Helene Sandbu Ryeng, Deputy Director at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs writes in an email to news. She points out that she cannot comment on individual cases. Read more of the response from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here: “There are some of the Norwegian citizens in Gaza who have not yet received permission to cross the border. There may be various reasons why some people we have on our list have not yet received this permission. Several actors have influence over who can travel out of Gaza and who comes across the border. We are in ongoing contact with the Israeli and Egyptian authorities, the Palestinian Authority and those who actually rule in Gaza to help ensure that Norwegian citizens who wish to get out are allowed to come out.” Do you think the authorities must go further – Norwegian authorities become very formalistic if they believe that the conditions for family reunification have not been met, in a situation where they say that they will do everything they can to ensure that Norwegian citizens can recover safely. That’s what Line Khateeb, head of the Palestine Committee, says. Line Khateeb is head of the Palestine Committee. Photo: Alf Simensen / news She points out that no Palestinians in Gaza receive documents without the occupation authorities’ approval, and that many do not have papers because they have never been registered and approved. – I don’t know why she hasn’t been able to get hold of ID documents, but there may be reasons that they are not aware of. Khateeb hopes the Norwegian authorities can take more into account and go further to assist in what is a very difficult situation. – I understand that he doesn’t want to leave them, I wouldn’t have done that either.
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Can’t bring his pregnant wife and child home to Norway – news Trøndelag – Local news, TV and radio
