Getting out of Gaza

Telegraph:

...

"In Gaza nowadays there is no place for wise, educated people. They have no voice," Mr Radwan said, as he prepared to leave yesterday.

In the streets around the offices of the management consultancy where he works in Gaza City, bursts of gun fire could be heard.

Rocket-propelled grenades crashed in the distance and the windows shook. A machinegun thudded off rounds in response.

Palestinian infighting, almost daily Israeli air strikes, and a steadily worsening economic situation triggered by an international aid boycott has made life unbearable for many Palestinians. Those who can are leaving.

European Union monitors at the Rafah border crossing from the Gaza Strip to Egypt say that more than 14,000 Palestinians have fled Gaza since Israel withdrew soldiers and settlers in 2005 and the rise to power of the Islamist Hamas five months later. In the past year alone, the average number of people leaving Gaza per day has doubled from 15 to 30.

The rising number of Palestinians seeking to emigrate has prompted Jerusalem's Mufti, Mohammad Ahmed Hussein, to issue a fatwa prohibiting Palestinians from leaving Palestinian territories.

"Immigration from this blessed land is not permissible according to Islamic law," said the religious edict. "People who live in this land should not leave it for the invaders and occupiers."

...

For those leaving, it would be hard to convince them that hell is much worse than living in Gaza. The Palestinians made a terrible mistake when they chose a Hamas government and now they are seeing the consequences of that choice. The contrast with the West Bank where Israel is till an "occupier" could not be clearer. They have now discovered that there are worse things than occupation. One is to have two terrorist groups fighting over controlling them.