Sanaa El-Nahhal was resting in a hotel close to Cairo airport yesterday as she prepared to return to Malta today, following her difficult journey to the Gaza Strip.
Speaking after her mission to transport supplies to her relatives and compatriots in the war-torn land was drawing to an end, Ms El-Nahhal said she hoped to return to Gaza despite the obstacles she encountered.
When she left Malta last week, she was unsure of the outcome of her trip but was ready to embark on it, unable to sit around while her family were experiencing a war. "I hope to return," she said from Egypt yesterday, despite the fact that, until recently, she doubted she would be able to leave and see her family in Malta.
It was thanks to the intervention of the Maltese embassy in Cairo that she did.
"The Palestinians need much more. Although I did my best, I feel it was not enough," she said.
The moment she finally entered Gaza on Tuesday night, Ms El Nahhal was keen to get out. She was forced to leave most of the 60 boxes of supplies she had taken from Malta at Gaza's border with Egypt.
She was informed that it would be difficult to leave and had started trying from the following morning. She eventually managed to depart on Friday, when the document she required arrived, but the obstacles had somewhat dampened her stay.
"I went into Gaza to help my family, and they ended up helping me to get out," she said.
While Ms El-Nahhal may be underestimating her efforts, she did manage to raise the morale of her relatives. Speaking from Rafah in the Gaza Strip, her 22-year-old niece Rasha expressed her family's happiness at being united with Ms El-Nahhal and the joy her presence had brought to them after a four-year absence. "It has been too long," Rasha said. "For us, she was a major support and a great help to all of us in Rafah. We were very happy with the clothes, food and medicines she got us. We do not have much here as we have been completely cut off," she said.
Yesterday was the first time students went back to school, Rasha said, describing the situation in the land that is recovering from a 22-day attack from Israel as "not too bad and not too good".
Since the ceasefire last week, things were not completely normal, but had improved, she said. "We are still afraid because we live in a dangerous area."
In between waiting at the border to get out of Gaza for hours on end, accompanied by her family, Ms El-Nahhal came across destroyed buildings and injured people. She spent time talking to them and listening to their stories.
Yesterday, she paid a courtesy visit to the Maltese embassy to express her gratitude for its assistance to her to enter Gaza, but especially to get out.