The circumstances seemed shady.
The man on the phone said he worked for a humanitarian organisation that could arrange to fly Ahmed Shehada and his family out of the war-ravaged Gaza Strip if he paid $1,600 (€1,400) per person to a crypto account. He demanded the money upfront.
Shehada thought it was a scam and declined. But after he learned of a friend who escaped Gaza through the same group, he decided to take a chance.
That decision led Shehada (37), his wife and their two young children on a jittery 24-hour journey in two separate bus convoys, through tense Israeli checkpoints, on to a flight with an unknown destination and eventually to South Africa, a country to which he had never been.
“The situation in Gaza is so dreadful, you would take such a risk,” he said.
Shehada, a doct
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