BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip (AP) — Residents of the Gaza Strip are celebrating one of their own, a space engineer from the territory who was part of NASA’s team that made history this month by launching an experimental helicopter from the surface of Mars. The Gazan engineer says an expedition to his hometown feels like it’s even farther away. Gazans living abroad who wish to visit their homeland face an arduous and uncertain process that could strand them inside the impoverished coastal territory for weeks or months. The Gazan engineer has only been back once since he left in 1998 to study in the United States.
