But while Temraz made it safely with her two children to Cairo, the rest of her family stayed in Gaza.

"We left the war but our hearts are still there," she said.

The crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened on November 1 as part of a Qatar-brokered deal between Israel, Egypt, Hamas and the United States, aimed at letting some foreign passport holders and their dependents, and some wounded Gazans, out of the besieged enclave.