Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, his wife, and their three children have made it to Egypt.

Abu Toha—whose Twitter feed these past eight weeks has been a litany of eyewitness horrors, desperate pleas for help to the international community, and achingly beautiful snippets of poetry—was kidnapped by Israeli forces on November 19th while trying to enter Egypt at the Rafah checkpoint. He was carrying his three-year-old son Mustafa at the time.

After being beaten, interrogated, and stripped of his possessions, Abu Toha was released two days later.

On Saturday evening, a source close to the family told CNN that Abu Toha and his family have finally been able to leave Gaza, and this was confirmed by Abu Toha himself yesterday afternoon in a message filled with anguish for those still trapped in the besieged enclave.

Dan Sheehan

Dan Sheehan

Dan Sheehan is the author of the novel Restless Souls (Ig Publishing) and Editor-in-Chief of Book Marks.