On March 1 Sky News published the results of an in-depth investigation it had undertaken. It asserted, quoting chapter and verse and with many supporting pictures, that an Egyptian company is charging Gazans $5,000 per person to escape to Egypt, and that it has no shortage of customers.
This method of fleeing from Gaza through a specialist company is known as “coordination”. It is a long established system by which Palestinians can pay for permission to leave the Gaza Strip and undertake the journey. Before the war, a number of companies were charging just a few hundred dollars for the service – pay the fee, and a few days later your journey across the border into Egypt is laid on.
Since the start of the war all official cross-border travel, with just a handful of carefully vetted exceptions such as foreign nationals and people with severe injuries, has ceased, but “coordination” is still being operated by just one company – the Egyptian firm Hala. Sky News asserts that currently the majority of those receiving permission to leave Gaza do so through Hala. Before the war Hala charged $350 per adult for their service. The company is currently charging $5,000 per adult. Sky News states it has verified this price by corroborating accounts from dozens of sources, including a Hala employee, as well as price lists posted online.
As an example, it took February 27. On that day 246 Palestinians were registered to travel with Hala. That means the company could have made $1,083,900 in just one day. Sky News says that the volume of daily passengers has been consistent for........