Last year, Ahmad received a visa to enter Australia. Safely arriving to stay with his sister in western Sydney, the next step was to have his family join them.
But despite successfully receiving the same visas months later, Ahmad’s wife and three children, aged 10, 12 and 13, remain stuck in Gaza. He remains in Sydney, praying.
Weeks of waiting have become months, and hope has turned to despair as Ahmad, whose surname has been withheld to protect his family’s identity, applies and reapplies for their visas.
Ahmad, a refugee from Gaza, is staying with his sister while his wife and children remain trapped overseas.Credit: Janie Barrett
“We’ve tried to get them out multiple times, but they’re never allowed out,” he said. “They just get the visas and sit and wait, hoping a crossing will be opened, and they can leave.
“They can die at any time, and I am just sitting here, waiting. There’s no food and no safety, they can die of starvation or bombing, and I can do nothing.
“If I had known they wouldn’t be able to leave, I never would have left. I’d prefer to die there together than live here in suffering.”
Ahmad’s three children, Sanaa, Isaac and Ameer, are all stuck in Gaza despite receiving Australian visas.
The federal government has a special visa pathway for Palestinians arriving from Gaza, which involves applicants arriving in Australia on a visitor visa and then being moved onto a humanitarian visa with ministerial discretion on a case-by-base basis.
But that is all dependent on Gazans making their own way to Australia, and since Israel took control of the Rafah crossing in May 2024, the flow of refugees has slowed. Of the 94 successful applicants this year, only 33 have arrived in Australia.
The situation has left refugees split from their families, with very little hope of a reunion any time soon.
Aid organisations have warned that 2 million Gazans are being pushed to the verge of famine amid Israel’s ongoing aid blockade.
It will soon be two years since Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1200 people and taking 251 others hostage. Fifty hostages remain in Gaza, but fewer than half are thought to be alive.
Since then, Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 58,800 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, more than half of whom have been women and children.
Ahmad’s lawyer, Amina Youssef, said the refugee intake had slowed after Israel took control of the Rafah border crossing in May last year.
Youssef, who has spent the past year applying and reapplying for visas for Gazans, said the only way visa holders could leave was if Australia pressured Israel to allow them to exit Gaza.
“Australia has standing with Israel: it can pressure them to at least get these people through the Rafah crossing. It’s the most important part of this process, just getting them out,” she said.
Youssef accused the federal government of having the capacity but “lacking motivation” to take such actions, arguing that, while it would be unusual for Australia to pressure a foreign government in this way, the extraordinary circumstances of the conflict warranted extraordinary steps.
“It’s terrible that these people are left to their fate. There is no reasonable prospects of them to get out on their own.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it “recognises that this is an incredibly distressing time” for those with family in Gaza and that it was doing all it could to support those with immediate family members, including parents, still in Gaza “who wish to depart but are unable to do so”.
“It continues to be very difficult for people to depart Gaza,” they said.
“The border crossings are controlled by local authorities, not the Australian government. Throughout the conflict there have been tight restrictions on who can cross.
“While we are doing all we can, the Australian government must work within this system, as do other countries with nationals in Gaza. DFAT is in ongoing communication with regional governments as well as like-minded countries.”
The Sydney Morning Herald has opened a bureau in the heart of Parramatta. Email parramatta@smh.com.au with news tips.
clarification
A previous version of this story did not include that the visas are granted with ministerial discretion.