Saady Lozon used to employ hundreds of Gazans, provide IT services to customers around the world including in Israel and travel internationally to promote Palestinians tech skills.

After Israel began a U.S.-backed offensive in Gaza on Oct. 7, Lozon, his wife and their 4-year-old son moved from shelter to shelter seeking safety from bombardment and reliable access to food and water. Lozons offices were destroyed, he lost contact with most of his employees and his clients went incommunicado, leaving him with $789,000 worth of unpaid invoices, he recently told HuffPost.

This is not a fair life the real victims are the civilians in the Gaza Strip, said Lozon, who this week ran out of medication he needs as a kidney transplant patient. On Thursday, he and his family joined the small number of civilians who have been able to flee the region for safety in Egypt after he paid tens of thousands of dollars for each of them for coordination to exit through the Rafah Crossing, currently the only exit point from Gaza.

More than 80% of Gazas population has fled their homes since Israel launched its campaign following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas and other Gaza-based militants. Theres growing urgency among people in the region to escape into Egypt because of the Israeli offensive now advancing toward the south, where most displaced people first moved on Israels orders. Its a chilling prospect for Palestinians who bitterly recall their families forced exodus from the areas that became Israel in 1948, yet it seems like one of the few realistic alternatives to dying during the siege on Gaza.

But the process of getting through the Rafah Crossing is confusing, dehumanizing and often dangerous, observers tell HuffPost. The Biden administration, which treated the opening of Rafah as a major victory and describes its work on the crossing as a top focus, has yet to demonstrate its trying to improve the procedure.

If people want it to be easy, its very easy, said Sammy Nabulsi, a Boston-based attorney who is working with Americans stuck in Gaza or who have family members there, referencing the ongoing flow of aid workers and other personnel through Rafah.

Yet civilians desperate to leave the region have to jump through many hoops, Nabulsi said, and still may end up having to spend huge amounts amid the devastation of their local economy.

Its crazy for people who are in these dire circumstances, who just want to be reunited with family the lengths they have to go to working with lawyers abroad, getting connected to members of Congress to make personal appeals, then somehow coming up with $7,000 to $9,000 a pop.

The State Department declined to provide details on the U.S. view of Gazans being asked for bribes to use the crossing and, in some cases, allegedly being scammed. One spokesperson told HuffPost the department does not have an updated estimate of how many American citizens and others eligible for U.S. evacuation assistance green card holders and close relatives of U.S. citizens are stuck in Gaza; they pointed to Jan. 4 remarks from State Department spokesperson Matt Miller, who referenced several hundred.