OSNABRÜCK, Germany — A small silhouette cuts through the Mediterranean: three men in everyday clothes huddled on a jet ski, clutching one another as they race toward Lampedusa. They set off from Libya shortly after midnight in August, hoping to reach Europe and find safety for relatives left behind in Gaza. While most crossings along that route use overcrowded smuggling boats, this was an unusually daring attempt on a recreational craft.
The jet ski’s driver, 31-year-old Mohammed Abu Daqqa, now sitting at a refugee welcome center in Germany, scrolls through photos of the voyage. The images and videos he shared have circulated widely online, but the attention brings him little comfort. His wife and two young sons — Sanad, 6, and Mahmoud, 4 — remain in Gaza, and his energy is focused entirely on getting them out.
Before the violence escalated in October, Abu Daqqa ran a thriving business in Gaza, providing internet services and importing goods. He owned two homes, a newly built farmhouse in Khan Younis and a car. Everything changed after the Hamas-led attack and the Israeli military campaign that followed: his possessions were destroyed and, he says, more than 250 members of his extended family were killed. The Gaza Health Ministry reports tens of thousands of deaths in the offensive. His wife and children have endured repeated displacements and are now living in a tent along a crowded seaside encampment, surviving amid severe shortages of food.
In April 2024 Abu Daqqa paid to cross into Egypt via Rafah, planning for his family to follow, but Israeli control of the border soon closed that option. From afar he received heartbreaking images and voice messages — children with empty cooking pots, desperate pleas to be reunited. He applied for visas to several countries where he thought he could claim asylum and sponsor his family, including Arab states that turned him away. In Beijing he reached out to the U.N. refugee agency but says he was detained briefly by Chinese authorities and expelled before his case could be considered. He later spent time in Malaysia and Indonesia. “The world is not open to people from Gaza,” he says.
Abu Daqqa eventually went to Libya, staying with relatives in Tripoli and trying to earn money by importing motorcycles for a delivery service to support his family. On March 20, an airstrike leveled his uncle’s house, killing those inside; a 25-day-old niece was the sole survivor pulled from the wreckage. Two months after that, his last remaining home was destroyed. With options dwindling and time running out, he decided to pay smugglers to reach Italy — but could not wait weeks for a boat.
The idea of crossing on a jet ski was risky, even bizarre. Could such a craft cover the roughly 186 miles to Lampedusa? Would storms or fuel problems doom them? Abu Daqqa studied the plan using online tools, bought a jet ski in Tripoli for about $5,000, lashed a rubber dinghy behind it to carry extra fuel and supplies, and persuaded two other Palestinians to join the attempt.
They departed around 1 a.m. on Aug. 17. The first 70 kilometers were harrowing, he recalls, with two- to three-meter waves tossing the craft before the sea calmed. Video from the crossing shows relief and celebration as they made progress. About 12 miles from Lampedusa they ran out of fuel. Using a satellite phone, Abu Daqqa rang a cousin in Germany, who in turn contacted a migrant rescue hotline; a Romanian patrol boat eventually spotted and rescued them.
They were taken to Italy, but Abu Daqqa moved on quickly to Germany to apply for asylum, hoping authorities there will permit his family to join him. A ceasefire has reduced some immediate danger, but his relatives still live near areas under Israeli military control and amid widespread destruction. When the ceasefire was announced, his eldest son sent a voice message begging to leave Gaza that very moment; bureaucratic and political obstacles keep reunification uncertain.
Abu Daqqa says that if he had known how difficult it would be to secure a safe country for his family, he might have stayed. He struggles to imagine life without them: remaining in Europe while his wife and children remain trapped, hungry and displaced, is a burden he says he cannot bear. Reuniting his family, he insists, is the only thing that will make the journey worthwhile.