For more than a year, Israeli authorities prevented Ayed Ayoub from escaping Gaza's hunger and war with his family for an academic fellowship in France. He finally left last month, after Israel unexpectedly eased its tight control of the border.
Ayoub, his wife and their four children are among around 1,000 Palestinians who have left the Gaza Strip following Israel's relaxation of rules in recent months, bussed from the enclave to board flights to Europe and elsewhere, according to interviews with affected Gazans and foreign diplomats.
"The situation in Gaza has become unbearable," said 57-year-old Ayoub, an engineer who earned his doctorate and masters degree at a French university after moving there in the early 2000s. His return was as part of a group of 115 Gazans accepted by France in April.
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