Palestinians desperate to flee Gaza pay thousands in bribes to ‘brokers’

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Very few Palestinians have been able to leave Gaza through the Rafah border crossing but those trying to get their names on the list of people permitted to exit daily say they are being asked to pay large “coordination fees” by a network of brokers and couriers with alleged links to the Egyptian intelligence services.

Most people are packed into the southern city of Rafah as Israeli air and ground assaults push them out of central and northern parts of the territory.

Egypt, a key regional player in negotiations on Gaza, has long resisted opening the Rafah crossing, fearing that millions of people would flee into the neighbouring Sinai peninsula.

Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, also said a mass influx of refugees from Gaza would set a precedent for displacing Palestinians from the West Bank into Jordan.

Even before his father’s detention, Baroud had spent weeks seeking help, spending hours on the phone to Washington or the US embassy in Jerusalem and emailing reams of information to the state department.

The state department said it was unable to comment on individual cases, with a spokesperson adding it was unaware of the broker system that some are using to pay to exit Gaza.

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