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OPT: Leaving Gaza

After a five hour wait at the Erez crossing, Mohammed Ali, a young Palestinian volunteer for Oxfam, successfully left Gaza earlier this month and arrived in the UK on 14 August. He is now spending his first weeks acclimatising to British life in Oxford and at Oxfam House. At Mohammed Ali's request, the publication of this blog was delayed until he was safely in Oxford. He begins a Master's course in International Political Communication, Advocacy and Campaigning in September at Kingston University.

For ten years I've dreamed of being able to study abroad. On the eve of my 28th birthday, it looks like I may finally be able to fulfil my dream.

After being trapped in Gaza for the past two years - ever since the Israeli blockade began at the time of the Hamas takeover in 2007 - I am leaving with the help of the UK Consulate and the British Council which has granted me a scholarship to study at a university in London.*

As a Palestinian refugee who was born and raised in Gaza, which is now largely sealed off from the rest of the world, I feel very lucky to have this opportunity that few others around me have. But at the same time I am devastated to be leaving behind my family, friends, the people I love. It was a near-impossible decision to make. But I had no other option. I'm going to the UK so I can give my family a better future.

When I look at my two young children, I am overwhelmed by sadness and confusion. There is hardly any milk in the shops, no toys...and no money available. I'm handing over the responsibility to my wife to find the milk to feed our children. Today there is some availability but tomorrow you never know.

My children have suffered a lot of trauma as a result of the blockade, and especially from the almost nightly bombing in Gaza during the conflict earlier this year. There is no freedom here, and if nothing changes, there is little hope they will have a chance to see the world, to enjoy their childhoods as children should. The only thing they have is the sea. But even that is contaminated with 77 tonnes of sewage flowing into the Mediterranean every day because spare parts to fix the water and sanitation systems aren't allowed in. The sea is toxic. The beaches are dirty.

There is nowhere for them to go.

As for me, I am going - or at least I hope I am! I'm worried that I won't be let out of Gaza and will lose my scholarship. Crossing into Israel is always very difficult. Few Gazans are permitted to leave.

I'm scared that I'll be questioned and arrested even though a representative from the British government is meeting me at the crossing to facilitate my safe exit. I instinctively remain sceptical; I am after all a Palestinian living in Gaza whose work has involved speaking about the harmful repercussions the Israeli blockade has had on my people. I'm worried that this will make me a 'prime suspect' in the eyes of the Israeli officials. Maybe I'm just being paranoid. Perhaps paranoia is a consequence of living in a constant state of virtual imprisonment.

I'm leaving my home early so I can enter Israel through the Erez crossing (which is at the northernmost point in the Gaza Strip) as soon as possible. I have no idea how long it will take to get out. Maybe 12 hours. Maybe less. It's a waiting game. Two years ago, I was stranded for two months at an airport in northern Egypt, just a few kilometres from my home, unable to return because of the Hamas takeover which prompted a clamp down on all crossings into and out of Gaza. And last April I wasn't granted permission to leave Gaza to help raise funds for Oxfam's programme work here providing food aid and other assistance to ordinary people. I am hoping for the best this time.

I have so much on my mind.

It's my last day of work today. I feel very sad to be leaving my office, my desk, my chair. Sad to be leaving my colleagues who will continue to live in the same difficult conditions.

It's been an intense week meeting farmers who are suffering from the blockade because they cannot export their crops and haven't been able to import many needed items like fertilizer - they are entering their third year of a ruined harvest.

Yesterday, I met one of the families receiving aid from Oxfam. The father has no job and is strugglng to feed his family. Tonight a suitor will come to propose to his daughter. She's only 17. He longed for his daughter to study but he has no choice. His family cannot afford the expense.

I feel some guilt at leaving so many people behind - not only my own family but the many people I've met while working for Oxfam. For example, one family whose house was destroyed in the war. Frustrated at the lack of reconstruction materials available in Gaza because of the blockade, they have begun to rebuild themselves. Instead of cement and new bricks, they are using clay and pieces of rubble in an effort to piece together their broken home. It makes me so sad. It doesn't have to be like this.

I want to study not only so I can better myself and help my own family, but so I can learn how to better explain to the international community the way we are suffering in Gaza, and why it is so wrong. Why ordinary people should not be punished for political reasons. Along with many others, I've done my best to try to get the message across, but so far it doesn't seem to have worked. Nothing has changed.

On the day I leave, I know that part of me will want to cry so that I can release this aching pain I feel inside. But I know that I have to be brave in front of my family like I was during the war. I have to be strong.

But for now all I can do is wait. Wait to see if I'm allowed out of Gaza. As I make plans to leave my family and my homeland behind, I only hope that it will all be worth it, that I will find a way on the outside to help change the lives of the 1.5 million of my fellow Palestinians who are still trapped inside with nowhere to go.