It took more than a year, several thousand dollars, ingenuity, setbacks and a jet ski: this is how Muhammad Abu Dakha, a 31-year-old Palestinian, managed to escape from Gaza to reach Europe.

He documented his story through videos, photographs and audio files, which he shared with Reuters. Reuters also interviewed him and his travel companions upon their arrival in Italy, and his relatives in the Gaza Strip.

Fleeing the devastation caused by the nearly two-year-old Israel-led war, in which Gaza health authorities say nearly 65,000 Palestinians have been killed, Abu Dakha crossed the Rafah border point into Egypt in April 2024, paying $5,000.

To China and back

He said he initially went to China, where he hoped to win asylum, but returned to Egypt, via Malaysia and Indonesia, after that failed. He showed Reuters email correspondence with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) Representation in China from August and September 2024.

Abu Dakha then went to Libya where, according to multiple reports by human rights groups and the UN, tens of thousands of migrants are routinely abused and exploited by traffickers and militias while trying to secure a spot on a boat to Europe.

According to data from Italy’s interior ministry, more than 47,000 boat migrants have arrived in the country in the year to date, mostly from Libya and Tunisia. But Abu Dakha made it across in highly unusual circumstances.

After 10 failed crossing attempts with smugglers, he said he purchased a used Yamaha jet ski for about $5,000 through a Libyan online marketplace and invested another $1,500 in equipment, including a GPS, a satellite phone and life jackets.

Accompanied by two other Palestinians, 27-year-old Diaa and 23-year-old Bassem, he said he drove the jet ski for about 12 hours, seeing off a chasing Tunisian patrol boat, all while towing a dinghy with extra supplies.

The trio used ChatGPT to calculate how much fuel they would need, but still ran out some 20 km (12 miles) shy of Lampedusa. They managed to call for help, prompting a rescue and their landing on Italy’s southernmost island on August 18.

They were picked up by a Romanian patrol boat taking part in a Frontex mission, a spokesperson for the European Union’s border agency said, describing the circumstances as “an unusual occurrence.”

“It was a very difficult journey, but we were adventurers. We had strong hope that we would arrive, and God gave us strength,” said Bassem, who did not share his surname.

“The way they came was pretty unique,” said Filippo Ungaro, spokesperson for UNHCR Italy, confirming that authorities recorded their arrival in Italy after a jet ski journey from the Libyan port of al-Khoms and a rescue off Lampedusa.

In a straight line, al-Khoms is about 350 km from Lampedusa.

Abu Dakha contacted Reuters while staying in Lampedusa’s migrant centre, after being told by a member of the staff there that his arrival via jet ski had been reported by local media.

From that point he shared material and documents, although Reuters was unable to confirm certain aspects of his account.

From Lampedusa to Germany

From Lampedusa, the odyssey continued. The three men were taken by ferry to mainland Sicily, then transferred to Genoa in northwestern Italy, but escaped from the bus transporting them before getting to their destination.

A spokesperson for the Italian interior ministry said it had no specific information about the trio’s movements.

After hiding in bushes for a few hours, Abu Dakha took a plane from Genoa to Brussels. He shared with Reuters a boarding card in his name for a low-cost flight from Genoa to Brussels Charleroi, dated August 23.

From Brussels, he said he travelled to Germany, first taking a train to Cologne, then to Osnabrueck in Lower Saxony, where a relative picked him up by car and took him to Bramsche, a nearby town.

He says he has applied for asylum, and is waiting for a court to examine his application, with no date set yet for a hearing. He has no job or income and is staying in a local centre for asylum seekers.

Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees declined to comment on his case, citing privacy reasons.

Abu Dakha’s family remains in a tent camp in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, their home destroyed.

“He had an internet shop, and his work, thank God, was comfortable financially and everything. He had built things up, and it all collapsed,” said his father, Abdrabuh Souliman Abu Dakha, speaking from Gaza.

Abu Dakha hopes to win the right to stay in Germany, and bring over his wife and two children, aged four and six. He said one of them suffers from a neurological condition requiring medical care.

“That’s why I risked my life on a jet ski,” he said. “Without my family, life has no meaning.”

• Defendants maliciously published book articles with repugnant distortions: lawsuit
• NYT and Penguin do not immediately respond to request for comment. 
• Lawsuit claims harm to President Trump’s business, personal reputation. 

US President Donald Trump sued the New York Times, four of its reporters, and publisher Penguin Random House for at least $15 billion on Monday, claiming defamation and libel, and citing reputational damage, a Florida court filing showed.

Trump’s suit cites a series of New York Times articles, one an editorial prior to the 2024 presidential election, which said he was unfit for office, and a 2024 book published by Penguin titled “Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success”.

“Defendants maliciously published the Book and the Articles knowing that these publications were filled with repugnant distortions and fabrications about President Trump,” according to the filing lodged on Monday in the US District Court, Middle District Florida.

The New York Times and Penguin did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.

The publications have harmed Trump’s business and personal reputation, thereby causing massive economic damage to his brand value and significant damage to his future financial prospects, Trump’s lawyers said in the filing.

“The harm to the value of TMTG (Trump Media and Technology Group) stock is one example of how the Defendants’ defamation has injured President Trump,” said his lawyers, citing “a precipitous decline in the stock price.”

TMTG stock has been under pressure in recent months fueled by worries about the end of a so-called lock-up period related to its stock market debut in March.

The filing comes after Trump threatened last week to sue the New York Times for its reporting on an allegedly sexually suggestive note and drawing given to Jeffrey Epstein.

Epstein, the disgraced financier and sex offender, died by suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019.

Trump has said he parted ways with Epstein before the financier’s legal troubles became public in 2006.

“Today, I have the Great Honor of bringing a $15 Billion Dollar Defamation and Libel Lawsuit against The New York Times,” Trump said earlier on Monday in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

In his post, Trump accused the paper of lying about him, his family and businesses, as well as Republican-led movements and ideologies such as the America First Movement, and Make America Great Again, or MAGA.

In his second term, Trump has intensified his crackdown against media companies. Earlier this year he sued the Wall Street Journal and its owners, including Rupert Murdoch, for at least $10 billion over the newspaper’s report that his name was on a 2003 birthday greeting for Epstein.

In July, CBS parent company Paramount agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump alleging that the CBS news program “60 Minutes” deceptively edited an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris that the network broadcast in October.

US President Donald Trump on Monday emphasized that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not carry out another strike on Qatar, following last week’s attack on Hamas that angered Washington’s Gulf ally.

“He won’t be hitting in Qatar,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, after Netanyahu did not explicitly rule out further strikes during a meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio cautioned on Tuesday that Hamas has only a limited window to accept a ceasefire deal as Israel continued its bombardment of Gaza City.

“The Israelis have already launched operations there. We believe there is a very short window for a deal to be reached. We no longer have months—probably just days or a few weeks,” Rubio told reporters while en route to Qatar to mediate.

“Our top priority is a negotiated settlement where Hamas agrees to demilitarize and cease posing a threat,” Rubio added.

“Sometimes when you’re dealing with a group of savages like Hamas, that’s not possible, but we hope it can happen,” Rubio said.

Rubio met with Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday, giving his backing to the Israeli Prime Minister’s new offensive in Gaza City and its stated goal of eradicating Hamas.

Witnesses later told AFP that the city was under heavy bombardment.