A military plane carrying 139 people, mostly Spanish-Palestinian citizens and some of their relatives, from Egypt after being evacuated from the besieged Gaza Strip landed in Madrid yesterday.
Spain’s acting Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares and acting Defence Minister Margarita Robles welcomed the evacuees on the runway of the Torrejon de Ardoz air base, outside the Spanish capital.
According to the defence ministry, the passengers included 33 men, 39 women and 67 minors – three of them babies under one year of age. Eighty-five of the evacuees held Spanish passports, while the remaining 54 were Palestinian nationals.
Albares expressed his happiness at their arrival, adding: “We shouldn’t forget that the lives of many other Palestinian civilians are being unjustly threatened by bombings”.
Amir Abu Jaraf, a 17-year-old high school student, told Reuters that before the war broke out, he was applying to study at a college in the US.
“I’m happy because I’m alive,” he said. “This is my mother here. Not everyone in Gaza is so lucky to have their mother next to them ... I’m very lucky to have my mother and my sister.”
Riad Al Aila, a professor of political science at Gaza’s Al Azhar University, said his family had endured 30 days of bombardment – “every day, every minute” – before they fled to Egypt through the Rafah border crossing.
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