For more than a year, Israeli authorities prevented Ayed Ayoub from escaping Gaza’s hunger and conflict 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 Gaza 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 graduate 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.

The new departures require a request to Israel by a foreign government, and their numbers remain relatively small.

Reuters could not establish why Israel was now letting more Palestinians leave Gaza, which comes amid international outcry over the humanitarian conditions there. However, the easing of restrictions parallels the Israeli government’s stated goal of facilitating the resettlement of Gaza’s population in other countries.

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