This family escaped Gaza for NZ, but could more have been helped?

Corazon Miller follows one family’s struggle to leave Gaza for New Zealand, and uncovers official documents indicating it might have been possible to evacuate more people trying to escape the conflict.

The call came with two days’ notice on Ahmed Abusaleeq’s 26th birthday.

His aunt Nima Alhaj, 54, and his 8-year-old brother Musa Abusaileek were being assisted out of Gaza, in a complex nighttime evacuation plan.

They all knew embarking on a bus journey through an active conflict zone was no guarantee of safe passage, but it was the best chance they had of a life, outside of the occupied Palestinian territory.

Abusaleeq, a Wellington-based medical student, says he spent the evening in tears, unable to sleep “just thinking about what was possible”.

“It was the best feeling I had in a very long time,” he says. “I never thought it would happen, I thought Nima and Musa would be killed. So when [I got the call] I felt what I’d been doing over the last few months had made progress - they will get to live tomorrow and unite with family.”

At the time, Alhaj and her nephew were living in Al-Mawasi – a 14-kilometre strip of agricultural land along the Mediterranean coast, having found shelter in a tent on a rural plot of land the family owned.

“There is no life in Gaza,” Alhaj says. “I was living in fear every day. There’s nothing worse to describe it, beyond just living in fear. Fear for your life, your loved ones, fear of dying.”

Their nightmare began when Israel launched its offensive on Gaza following the October 7, 2023 attacks in which Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostage.

The constant shifting of the battle lines since then has seen the family, like millions of others in Gaza, move – repeatedly. They first fled their home in Al-Qarara, north of Khan Younis, to seek refuge at a United Nations-run school.

From there they moved south to Rafah but were there just a few weeks before new evacuation orders were issued by Israeli forces and they returned north – eventually settling among the more than 1.2 million people the United Nation estimates fled to Al-Mawasi. A so-called “safe zone”.

In the early weeks of the war, Israel had designated the area a “humanitarian zone” for civilians in search of safety. But in reality Palestinians who’ve sought shelter there say they feel barely any safer than elsewhere in Gaza, where more than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed in the past two years of conflict according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Ahead of the ceasefire which took effect this week, strikes and shelling have been a daily risk. It’s over-crowded and lacks critical infrastructure, telecommunications and basic necessities.

In better times the fertile soil and underground water supplies enabled the thousands who'd called Al-Mawasi home to produce enough food and income for a simple life in Gaza. The land the Abusaleeq family owned there was once productive, with a few trees, some fruit and vegetables.

Before the war Alhaj also worked as a secretary and was able to provide for her nephew who she raised alongside her own family. Abusaileek enjoyed going to school and spending time with friends.

But after October 7, 2023 that all changed.

Work became impossible, and the schools were all closed. The family went from having three meals a day with ample choice, bread, meat, vegetables and fruit – to just one meal a day, typically lentils or whatever canned food they could get their hands on.

From 16,000 kilometres away Abusaleeq felt powerless as he watched the irregular updates he’d get via WhatsApp.

In one, his younger brother is sitting on a chair, asking him when he’ll be able to join him in New Zealand.

His aunt is heard in the background saying, “When God is willing, we will go.”

Having spent his first 19 years in Gaza Abusaleeq was familiar with life under military occupation but says what its people were going through now was unlike anything he had experienced.

“I felt so powerless, in a way where I knew I wasn’t able to help much,” he says. “But they had to get that sense of hope from someone.”

He did what he could, juggling his medical studies and responsibilities caring for his younger siblings here in New Zealand. And fighting in the only way available to get what family he could out of Gaza – starting with trying to secure visas.

His aunt and younger brother’s visitor visas were approved in March 2024, but with the border crossing at Rafah closed officials told him repeatedly there was no way out.

For close to a year the situation was seemingly unchanged – until they received the call in May this year, informing them of the evacuation.

Alhaj says it was the news she wanted to better guarantee her nephew’s future, even as she harboured fears for the journey, and the rest of the family she’d leave behind.

“I was happy to finally leave, but I was really sad I was leaving my home, leaving my family, including my children and grandchildren.”

Her younger nephew tears up when asked about Gaza and his older brother explains it’s because he misses his cousins and worries about their safety.

Abusaleeq harbours similar fears, and grief, for his remaining family he’d hoped to get visas for. Despite applying for his mother, Wesam Abudaqq, 53, his stepfather Younis Abudaqqa, 40, and two younger sisters, Waad, 13, and Sara 10 to come to New Zealand, theirs had been declined – twice.

He says officials told him there was lack of sufficient evidence to prove their financial or social ties to Gaza and did not meet the criteria of “bona fide applicants” for the purpose of a visitor’s visa.

And as the message from New Zealand officials was there was no way out anyway he didn’t try again.

But, as documentation 1News has uncovered reveals, there are increasingly more ways out of Gaza for visa holders, leaving him questioning whether that was really the case.

“Now that I know my aunty was able to leave, I have such huge guilt, that if anything bad was to happen to my mum, it would be something that I would have to carry for the rest of my life.

“If we do lose family in the process, if there’s anyone to blame it will be the New Zealand government and my family will not forget that.”

Abusaleeq joins the hundreds of Palestinian here, with relatives in Gaza who have been pleading with the New Zealand Government and Immigration Minister Erica Stanford to establish a special humanitarian pathway.

Email correspondence released under the Official Information Act details just some of those pleas:

Stanford and immigration officials have responded to individual requests, and made public statements, all of which have been variations of the same - a new visa category is not being considered, but any applications for people from Gaza under existing pathways will be prioritised.

The latest Immigration New Zealand data shows since October 7, 2023 close to 70% (254 of 377) applications for temporary and resident visa applications from Palestinian passport holders have been approved. Of those, 121 have since arrived in New Zealand – the agency aware of 34 who were in Gaza at the time of their application.

And figures from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggest it assisted in the evacuation of 41, the majority in the early stages of the war, with the remaining 13 evacuated out in May.

Among those in the latest group were six who the Associate Minister of Immigration Chris Penk granted visas as an exemption to ordinary circumstances.

Palestinian New Zealander Katrina Mitchell-Koutabb says the fact exemptions are required shows the existing pathways are not fit for purpose, and many families have chosen not to pursue a visa as they felt the requirements were insurmountable for many. That in many cases, “the door has been shut”.

The principal pathway, a visitor's visa, among other requirements expects applicants to show proof they’ll return to Gaza at the end of their approved stay in New Zealand. They must also provide evidence of family ties, and financial assets such as a job or a bank account.

“People don’t have documentation, people don’t have money, people don’t have a place of residence to return to,” Mitchell-Koutabb says.

Two years on and Cabinet has not been persuaded by the repeated calls for a special humanitarian pathway for those in Gaza.

Publicly, minister Stanford has maintained that doing so would simply create “false hope” as there’s no way out – a statement she reiterated as recently as June this year, when asked if given the humanitarian crisis in Gaza she’d had any regrets.

When questioned again this week, she refused an interview but said in a statement there remain no plans to set up a special visa pathway.

Nor would she discuss the rationale behind Cabinet’s discussions on the issue as they are “subject to collective confidentiality”. She added: “It is not possible for New Zealand to respond to all conflicts in the world with a special visa pathway.”

Documentation obtained by 1News via an Ombudsman review shows that aside from the challenge of getting out of Gaza, there may have been other reasons for not going down this road.

Officials looking at a bespoke pathway also took into consideration the ability of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) to manage any exit out of Gaza, and to provide resettlement support and flights. There would also be additional pressure on New Zealand’s resources and a “precedent effect”.

Another reason remains redacted under section 6 (A) of the Official Information Act that allows for the withholding of information that could “prejudice the security or defence of New Zealand, or the international relations of”.

Mitchell-Koutabbb says it’s a stance the Palestinian community here will find difficult to forget.

“It’s been horrific to see the silence coming from this government,” she says. “This government has lost contact, with its people, its history and with hope for humanity, and for peace moving forward.

Opposition MPs have also been highly critical of the Government’s call and their publicly stated reasons for not establishing a visa.

Phil Twyford, Labour’s immigration spokesperson, and former associate minister of immigration under the previous government, says it’s a “political decision” and a question of “political will”.

“They don’t want to help Palestinians to take refuge in New Zealand, but they haven’t been upfront with the public about it. They’ve actually been misleading, and I think that’s a real shame.”

He says a special visa is not without precedent.

“When the Taliban took over in Afghanistan, our government resettled 1,800 Afghans who were at risk. We resettled several hundred Ukrainians who took refuge here because of the Russian invasion. This is what Kiwis expect.”

The Greens immigration spokesperson Ricardo Menedez-March says the visa would only see a small number of people granted the right to come to New Zealand, but it would make a big difference to those who get it.

“With the families we chose to reunite from Ukraine, there was an acknowledgement that we needed adequate pathways for them to settle here in the country while the war was still raging in Ukraine.

“The same privilege should be given to Palestinian Kiwis who have families in Gaza.”

Stanford has repeatedly said Ukraine was different because it was possible to get people out. But official documentation obtained by 1News shows at the time of her latest reiteration of that statement in June officials had already successfully facilitated a plan to get a select few visa holders and residents out of Gaza.

The documents noted a shift in Israel’s approach to border crossings earlier this year, created more opportunities to leave the strip – some 10 months after regular departures were halted as a result of the Rafah crossing being closed

And while it took time for NZ consular officials to investigate what this meant for a small group they were supporting in Gaza, it became clear a rare window of opportunity was opening.

“Israel has indicated they intend to support departure of Palestinians from Gaza, and plan to establish an agency to support this,” one email thread read. “We believe these developments create an opportunity for us to facilitate the exit of at least some of the small number of families we are working with in Gaza.”

The breakthrough seemingly occurred when a partner nation offered support, partly in return for the evacuation of its nationals out of the Pacific in 2024.

An MFAT spokesperson told 1News these missions were out of New Caledonia in May last year and Vanuatu in December, but says to avoid prejudicing its relations with the countries concerned it would not identify who assisted in the evacuations out of Gaza.

The small group of those eligible for evacuation initially numbered just seven people on the foreign ministry’s list. But as official investigations progressed, they uncovered an additional six who the Associate Minister of Immigration had granted visas to as an “exemption to ordinary instructions”.

The total number therefore grew to 13 across four separate groups. Officials at the time also made it clear the additional group was being approved as an exception and they wouldn’t be able to help with any last-minute visa approvals that came through.

The green light was then given with a tentative date of departure from Gaza via the Kerem Shalom Crossing on May 20. But officials cautioned right up until the final moment there would be uncertainty over its success, saying “last minute changes and cancellations are possible”.

Official correspondence further detailed the risk, for those on the bus, and those waiting at the border with Israel to receive them, with little to protect them from any potential fallout of Israeli shelling into Gaza.

“This is a difficult and time-consuming process that requires consuls to take responsibility for the operation and manage [redacted] in real time... while on the phone with COGAT [Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories] and an Arab speaking local staff member on the phone with the bus driver,” the correspondence said.

“While there is a direct shelter at the border, it would not be much help in a direct hit.”

Still, they advised going ahead to apply for approval from Israel for anyone on its list.

“The approval has no expiry date, and it is not committing to supporting individuals to move, but it does help to have it ready when a decision is made to do so.”

In preparation, every family received the same detailed written instructions that told them to take nothing but the clothes they wore, one small bag, the size of a handbag, passports, visas, plane tickets and some money for the journey.

All were also asked to sign an indemnity waiver to “accept the risks associated with travel”.

On the morning of May 20 officials sent another update saying the evacuations were underway.

For Nima Alhaj and Musa Abusaileek the journey began the day before as they left al-Mawasi to spend the night with a family friend near the designated muster point in Deir al Balah, central Gaza.

They met at the pre-arranged location at 0300 where along with around 60 others they boarded buses destined for the border with Israel at the Kerem Shalom crossing.

It is usually a journey of less than an hour, but travelling through the active conflict zone, even with an Israeli escort, required delicate coordination and regular stops to allow for safe passage. The total drive time was more than five hours.

Alhaj says weren’t allowed to take photos or video on the journey. Instead, she describes what she saw. “All I could see was destruction, no signs of life, no trees, no animals, no buildings left.”

After arriving at the Kerem Shalom crossing, it took another two hours before approval was given to travel into Israel. It was only then Alhaj began to finally feel safety was within reach. “I just started crying, I was so happy and so relieved.”

They still had a long journey ahead. Another seven hours of travel took them through the West Bank to the King Hussein Bridge border crossing with Jordan. From there they were transferred to the Jordanian capital, Amman, before landing 48 hours later in Auckland.

Now they are in New Zealand, Alhaj says it’s possible to dream of a future for her nephew who, at just eight, has decided he wants to be a plastic surgeon.

Up until earlier this year, official pathways out of Gaza were limited. But official documentation revealed that as Israel began to change its approach other countries established an almost regular weekly operation.

“Missions are normally taking place on Wednesday every week,” New Zealand officials wrote in an email in April this year.

To keep across the latest, NZ officials joined a WhatsApp group of all other embassies to give them greater oversight over what movements were happening out of Gaza.

Another email update detailed how Israel’s reversal of the ban on Palestinians leaving had seen exit operations evolve, “becoming more commercial”.

“Consular partners are working together to organise combined community convoys that carry multiple nationalities, these operate on a regular basis with support being provided by commercial bus companies.”

Germany and Belgium are among two countries that have successfully worked on getting who they can out.

A German Federal Foreign Office spokesperson told 1News that since March 2025 Israeli authorities have at “irregular intervals granted appointments for the departure of individuals from Gaza via land routes to Jordan”.

This year it says it has issued close to 4,300 visas to Palestinian applicants.

A spokesperson for Belgium’s Foreign Affairs Office says since July it’s been able to make evacuations happen on a regular basis – in total five evacuation operations have taken place and about 260 people have been evacuated out of Gaza.

For New Zealand, without establishing its own regular operation, it was reliant on the generosity of those in charge of the regular convoys to help. Families 1News spoke to believe it was German consul officials who oversaw their convoy – though neither NZ nor German authorities will confirm this.

Mitchell-Koutabbb says it’ll be hard news for many in the community to hear that there was a rare window of opportunity for those with New Zealand links.

“Had Immigration [officials] been open and transparent and welcoming to the community – without a doubt we could’ve helped many more families out of what is hell on earth.

‘I think many in the community will be utterly devastated that there have been some pathways available. And for many this will be too late.”

1News asked Stanford if she was aware there was a way out when she made her last statement to the contrary in June – but she said she not able to comment on people being facilitated out as “that is led by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs”.

When 1 News attempted to seek further clarity if all of Cabinet was aware of the evacuation in May, a MFAT spokesperson said the "Government's provision of consular assistance to New Zealand citizens and others in Gaza, with a right to come to New Zealand, is a matter of public record".

For the 41 assisted by MFAT to New Zealand the immediate risk to life is over. But for those among them on short-term visas their future here remains uncertain. Many have visas that are due to expire next month.

Hamilton man Nael Abusaleh’s mother, Faika Abusaleh, 69, is another one of the 13 MFAT helped get out of Gaza in May.

He says what would usually have been a 15 minute taxi ride to the initial meeting point took her six hours on foot, across unpaved roads, full of rubble and through dangerous conflict zones.

When she finally arrived in Jordan, where he met her more than a day later, he says she was so tired, she could barely eat or talk.

“Every time I remember that moment, I cry.”

After surviving an arduous journey, he fears what it’ll mean if his mother has to return to Gaza if he can’t get her an extension to her visa.

She’s on a parent visitor visa which allows her to stay in New Zealand for up to six months at a time – a total of 18 months across three years.

While he plans to keep fighting, he says, his mother seems to have accepted her fate.

She is OK, she knows the situation, she keeps reminding me every day. She says, ‘please don’t take any agony for me, don’t stress, if they don’t want me here, send me back to Gaza’.”

Deputy Chief Operating Officer of Immigration, Jeanne Melville, says immigration officials cannot guarantee her a visa but “can assess her eligibility and consider whether her circumstances justify an exemption”.

And there is also the option to seek the intervention of the associate minister for immigration.

Abusaleh says it’s a response that lacks clarity. “No clear answer, and no commitment to help.”

But he fears what it means if his mother has to return to Gaza, where their family home has been razed, “it is an apocalypse”.

Those like Abusaleeq who also have relatives in Gaza would still like to see a special visa granted – a special visa similar to the one given to Ukrainians. That would not just give them a ticket out of the devastated strip, but give them greater reassurances once here, including the right to study and work.

With the Government again making it clear there are no plans for that, he has little choice but to pick up the fight on behalf of his mother, stepfather and younger sisters once again, hoping this time their visas will get accepted.

For now, they’re alive in Gaza. But he says it's a life of fear, lived in a tent, with no proper toilet, no clean water and nowhere they can really call safe.

Even if the latesr ceasefire endures, he says the challenges they face aren’t temporary and are likely to persist for months, if not years, as people try to rebuild what little remains.

“The photos I receive of [my mother] break me. She looks so thin, so malnourished, that sometimes I cannot bring myself to eat, because how can I eat when my own mother has nothing.”