For those desperate to leave Gaza, a grassroots Palestinian initiative is crowdsourcing an exit strategy

Palestinians with dual citizenship leaving Gaza through the Rafah border crossing in November 2023.

Nagham Zbeedat reports in Haaretz on 20 July 2025:

A young Palestinian in Gaza has launched a grassroots initiative to help people leave the Gaza Strip. What began as a WhatsApp group to help Gazans find safe passage out of the besieged enclave quickly swelled into a network of hundreds of people who act as a “collective brain” amid the escalating humanitarian crisis.

“This isn’t about leaving our homeland,” Khaled Abu Sultan, the campaign’s 33-year-old founder, told Haaretz. “It’s about survival.”

The initiative, titled #Survival_Attempt, surprised Abu Sultan with its rapid growth. “I thought maybe a few people would respond,” he tells Haaretz in an interview. “But within hours, my inbox exploded. People from all over the Strip – mothers, fathers, students – were begging to join. All of them had one thing in common: They’ve lost everything, and they’re trying to survive.  “It’s only open to people inside Gaza,” he clarifies. “This is for the ones still trapped in this burning house.”

It is a self-organized, grassroots space for information-sharing and collective problem-solving with no outside funding, no relocation program and no promise of departure. Abu Sultan is clear: #Survival_Attempt is not an NGO, nor is it affiliated with any political group.  “Right now, we are just gathering,” he explains. “We’re creating a space where people can talk openly about how to get out – legally, logistically, emotionally – and share updates about borders, travel regulations or any contact with international bodies.”

The group also crowdsources information from those who have managed to leave Gaza during wartime. “Some people made it out early on. We’re learning from their experiences. We’re sending emails to international organizations, embassies and human rights groups. This is the start of something bigger.”

Since the war began, a limited number of people from Gaza have been able to leave the Strip through restricted and often costly channels. One primary route has been the Rafah crossing into Egypt, where thousands paid substantial fees – reportedly between $5,000 and $10,000 per person – to a private company. After being shuttered for nine months, the Rafah border crossing reopened in February 2025 during the brief cease-fire. It has remained closed since Israel broke the cease-fire and resumed fighting in March.

Others managed to leave Gaza as part of a medical evacuation list, either because they required urgent medical care themselves or were accompanying a relative in need, a process facilitated by humanitarian organizations and foreign embassies.

A smaller number of dual nationals or foreign passport holders were able to exit following negotiations between their government and Israel or Egypt. These paths, however, have remained limited, non-transparent and out of reach for most of Gaza’s population.

‘A slow and silent genocide’
Khaled is neither an aid worker nor a politician. He’s a former radio and TV presenter, voiceover artist and small business owner. Before the war, he lived with his wife in a modest home they spent years building.

“I had everything,” he says. “Peace, structure, dignity. I built a life away from the noise, away from chaos. And in one moment, it was all gone.” The initiative began as a personal response to an unlivable reality.

Born in Gaza, Khaled spent most of his life in Libya, Egypt and Turkey before returning to Gaza 13 years ago – a decision he now calls his greatest mistake. “I insisted on staying here,” he says. “I told myself I wouldn’t leave no matter what. I had a beautiful life, a business, a wife I love. But then the war came, and everything vanished.”

Abu Sultan and his family have been displaced 16 times since the war began. They’ve slept in the streets, gone days without food or clean water, and narrowly escaped death multiple times. This emotional breaking point, he says, is what led him to start the WhatsApp group. “This isn’t about emigration. This is not forced displacement. We are just trying to survive.”

In July, during a visit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed the mass transfer of Palestinians from Gaza through Trump’s “Gaza Riviera” plan, which was initially announced in February. “President Trump had a brilliant vision,” Netanyahu said. “If people want to stay, they can stay, but if they want to leave, they should be able to leave. It shouldn’t be a prison.”

Abu Sultan is careful with his words, aware that the optics of his initiative could be controversial and construed as promoting the forced displacement of Palestinians. He clarifies, “We are not calling for people to leave their homeland. We are calling for people to live. To survive.”

When asked whether he would stay in Gaza if the war were to end tomorrow, he says no. “Because this isn’t the last war. There will be more. It won’t be the last bloodshed.” Abu Sultan does not believe in the illusion of return. “Even if this place became paradise overnight, I wouldn’t come back. Gaza didn’t just die for me, it died for future generations.”

He recounts the relentless losses over the past 13 years: A business destroyed in the 2014 war. A clothing store closed five years later. A marriage delayed for years due to poverty. A hard-earned college degree in broadcasting, never put to use, because he “wasn’t affiliated with any faction.” A creative, thriving brand he built with his wife, gone in a flash.

In Gaza, political affiliation, or lack thereof, can significantly impact one’s access to employment, particularly in public sector jobs or positions with NGOs and local institutions. Those not affiliated with dominant factions like Hamas or, to a lesser extent, Fatah, often find themselves excluded from job opportunities, promotions or social services.

In his family, Abu Sultan says, he’s known as Jabal al-Mahamil, meaning the mountain that carries burdens, in Arabic. “But the mountain has collapsed,” he says. After all these months of war, “I can’t even find a loaf of bread for the people I love. Even if you have money, you can’t use it. The banking system is broken. The markets are broken. Everything is broken.”

He recalls watching his own parents – once proud, self-reliant people – break down in front of him. “I saw the people who raised me, who never asked anyone for help, standing in line begging for a piece of bread.”

Now, his only goal is to help others escape what he calls “a slow and silent genocide.” And the response has been overwhelming. “The ones contacting us are the crushed people,” he says. “The ones who lost homes, futures, loved ones.”

For now, the group is still in its early stages, sharing updates, collecting names and building momentum. Khaled is preparing a media campaign to raise awareness, calling on international bodies to step in.

“What we need now is connection,” he says. “We need journalists, lawyers, NGOs, embassies, human rights groups – anyone who can help people find safe passage.”

As the group has no links to any authority in Egypt, Israel or Hamas, “no one in this group has the authority to get someone out,” he says. Movement out of Gaza has been extremely restricted and largely dependent on coordination among these authorities. However, the group holds on hope that “someone might know the latest rules on travel permits. Someone else might have contacts who left and can explain the process. We’re building a collective brain, trying to think of ways to get to safety.”

Since launching the campaign earlier this week, Khaled has received offers of funding, from friends and other people from beyond Gaza trying to help. He turned them all down. “I don’t want money,” he says firmly. “This is not about donations or charity. People here are not begging. They are willing to sell everything to get out. What they need is dignity. Information. A way out.”

He adds, bitterly, “In Gaza, money doesn’t mean anything anymore. You can’t even use it. People here have stopped asking for human rights. Now they’re asking for the rights of animals – to eat, drink, and sleep in peace.”

When asked what kind of help the campaign needs, Khaled doesn’t hesitate: “Visibility.”

This article is reproduced in its entirety