Elias Elkafarna, 5, left, and his brother Qasem, 6, hold their American passports in front of their parents, Kamal and Nojod in Gaza City. Kamal Elkafarna, a Palestinian instructor, has two American sons, born in the United States while he studied there on a U.S. government scholarship.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — In blockaded Gaza, even an American passport isn't a sure ticket to freedom.

Two boys, ages 5 and 6, are stranded because one has a U.S. passport that expired and the other's is about to.

The U.S. offers no consular services in Gaza, and Israel's border closure of the Hamas-ruled territory prevents the children from reaching the nearest U.S. diplomatic mission in Israel.

The bureaucratic limbo means the boys' Palestinian parents can't leave Gaza, either. Their father, Kamal Elkafarna, stands the risk of losing out on doctoral studies in Russia.

"It's an absurd situation," said Keren Tamir of the Israeli human rights group Gisha, which has appealed to an Israeli court on behalf of the family. "They can't get new passports since they can't leave Gaza, and they can't leave Gaza since they don't have new passports."

The predicament of the Elkafarna family highlights the growing hardship suffered by Gazans, two years after the territory was seized by the Islamic militant group Hamas and its borders slammed shut.

The closure is enforced by both Israel and Egypt, which only let out a trickle of Gazans. Egypt opens the gates periodically for Palestinians with foreign residency or medical patients. Israel enables Gazans suffering serious illness to reach Israeli hospitals for treatment.

Israel says the travel restrictions are a result of Hamas' hostility to the Jewish state.

However, the blockade has been widely criticized. The Quartet of Mideast mediators — the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia — demanded over the weekend that Gaza's borders be opened. Human rights groups say locking in Gazans, especially students like Elkafarna, has backfired because the closure limits development while fueling frustration and militancy.

Elkafarna, 37, holds a Master's degree in systems engineering from George Washington University. His two sons, 5-year-old Elias and 6-year-old Qasem, were born in the United States while he obtained his degree.

Elkafarna, his wife and two sons returned to Gaza in 2004. He said that at the time, he didn't want to overstay his student visa in the U.S. and that he had no other place to go except Gaza.

He now hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in project management at Voronezh State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering in Voronezh, Russia. However, Russia won't give the boys visas in expired passports, and renewing the passports has proved impossible.

Elkafarna could apply for Palestinian travel documents for the boys, but argues he shouldn't have to since they are American citizens. He also refuses on principle, saying his Palestinian papers earned him nothing but humiliation at Israeli checkpoints during his university studies in the West Bank

In Jerusalem, U.S. Consulate spokeswoman Christina Higgins said she can't comment on individual cases, but that the U.S. State Department has been up front about its limited ability to provide services to Americans in Gaza.

The U.S. has banned government employees from the territory since Palestinian militants blew up an American diplomatic convoy there in 2003, killing three guards.

"We're in regular contact with American citizens there and we do monitor their welfare," she said. "In the past, we've done regular evacuations when groups of Americans want to leave. That said, our advice holds; we really think Americans should avoid all travel to Gaza because we do have a very limited capability there."