Meet Me in Gaza (35 page)

My friends and colleagues were the same wonderful people, but Gaza looked so different, on the surface at least. I was taken aback by the smooth new tarmac roads stretching across the Strip, and the swathe of brightly lit new hotels, restaurants, cafés and supermarkets around the centre of Gaza City, including the gleaming new five-star ArcMed Al Mashtal Hotel (which had stood unfinished for years), with its sumptuous landscaped swimming pool.

Where has all this new money come from, I asked my friends. They told me about the 800 new local millionaires (most of whom own tunnels down in Rafah), and about the opportunities open to people with strong Hamas connections – while the gap between the minority rich and majority poor has become a gaping chasm, as the Israeli siege drags on. Then they described the rise of Hamas: how the movement has consolidated its power by tolerating no dissent, using Israel’s continuing siege and Western international sanctions to justify its increasingly repressive regime. One of my friends calls this Hamas’s ‘policy of self-absolution’.

Having secured its political supremacy in Gaza, Hamas is now quite literally a force to be reckoned with. During my visit, violence between Israel and Hamas ratcheted up once again. When I left, on 12 November, I had a feeling in my stomach that something bad was going to happen. Twenty-four hours later, Israel assassinated the Hamas military commander Ahmed al-Jabari and began its latest military assault on Gaza.

Western sanctions against Hamas have served no purpose and have utterly failed to protect civilians inside Gaza. Hamas may respond to international dialogue, as the movement now seeks further international legitimacy. The continued isolation of Hamas by Western governments, however, will only strengthen the militants within the movement, not those who are prepared to seek change through dialogue. But these horrifying escalations of violence between Hamas and Israel, where the overwhelming majority of people killed are always Gazans, will continue for as long as Israel maintains its military occupation of Palestine, including its siege of Gaza, which is now in its seventh year.

I owe a huge debt of thanks to my colleagues and friends inside Gaza. First, a massive and heartfelt
shukran
to Raji Sourani and his team of indomitable human rights defenders in Gaza City, who continue to hold Israeli and Palestinian perpetrators of human rights abuses to account, whilst living under siege themselves. It was a privilege to work with you. Special thanks to Khalil, Hamdi, Mona, Jehan, Reem, and of course Salah!

A million thanks to my wonderful community of friends across Gaza, for their laughter, generosity and support: to Zekra and her family – who literally made me one of their own; to Khalil, Zahia and their family; to Tamer, Safah, Aitemad, the sublimely talented Soumaya El Sousi, Adham, Mohammed El Majdelawi, Dr Mona, Assma, Said Al Madhoun, Manwah and her family up in Beit Hanoun; and to Faiza and her parents, her sister Saida and their neighbours (especially J’meah) down in Rafah. Thanks to Donna for inviting me out to sea. Thanks to Saber Al Zaneen, who taught me about true resistance, and to his family. Thanks also to Miriam and Mohammed who always make me feel welcome, and to Sabri, for his wise instruction. Thank you to all the staff at café Mazaj, to Samir at the Al Deira hotel, to Mohammed the taxi driver for laughter and cigarettes, to Fathers Alexius and Andreas for their grace, and to Tariq Mukhimer, Louise, Darah and Sarah M.

Thank you to all the individuals and families in Gaza who shared their often very painful stories with me. Many thanks to Andrea and Kathy, for their vital practical assistance. Over in the West Bank, thank you Raja, for guiding me to Palestine in the first place and being my good friend the whole time I was there. Thank you to Ashraf, Anne of Paris, Samer for my first Arabic words, Stuart Shepherd – and thank you Mesky, for being such an inspiring, joyful and kind friend.

Closer to home, I want to thank Bev Cohen and Lawrence Joffe for their wonderful editing expertise, my literary agent David Grossman for his wisdom and unfailing support, my publisher Lynn Gaspard, and my brilliant motley crew of friends: Rahul, Geraint, Gica, Jan, Nick Thorpe, Stephen, Heather, Adam Salmon, Tuesday, Peter, Myriam and Rhemie, Katie, Jo and Kyna, Siri, Pat, Rania and Chris, Mike Stewart, Helen, Carol and Sue B. Thanks to Karin for a summer in her perfect ‘casita’. Extra special thanks to the ‘A team’, including Lorna Miller, Trish, Ruth, Anja, Cath and Amy Duncan, who each typed for me when my fingers literally failed. And thanks indeed to Ma and Richard for their love, support, and many desperately needed glasses of red wine.

1.
     After Hamas’s takeover, Israel stated that it would allow only basic humanitarian supplies into Gaza. A list of ‘duel use’ items, including fertilisers and steel pipes, were banned on the pretext that they could be used in manufacturing weapons. Construction materials were also banned, plus tinned fruit, mineral water and numerous other items. At one point the list included pasta. Israel only published an itemised list of the banned goods in June 2010.

2.
     For those who want to know more, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) was set up in the late 1970s, inspired by its namesake in Egypt. PIJ operated out of Gaza until 1987, when it was exiled to Lebanon. Its HQ is now in Damascus, but its forces’ operations are in the West Bank and Gaza. PIJ has carried out dozens of suicide bombings in Israel, often targeting Israeli civilians.

3.
     Abu means ‘father of’, so Abu Ali means ‘father of Ali’. Umm Ali means ‘mother of Ali’.

4.
     The Gaza Strip needs around 240 megawatts (MW) of electricity per day, in winter, to maintain normal services. Functioning at full capacity, the Gaza power plant supplies 103 MW of electricity, supplying almost 700,000 people, nearly half the local population. The rest comes from Israel (100 MW) and from Egypt (17 MW). See
pchrgaza.org

5.
     Fatah was founded in 1959 by diaspora Palestinian refugees, including Yasser Arafat, with the aim of liberating Palestine from Israeli occupation. The name Fatah is the reverse acronym of ‘Palestine National Liberation Movement’ in Arabic. ‘Fatah’ is also used in religious discourse to signify the early expansion of Islam, referring to the seventh-century Hudaybiyyah Treaty between Mecca and Medina, when many people converted to Islam, strengthening the new religion.

6.
     
http://198.62.75.1/www1/ofm/mad/discussion/127discuss.html

7.
     Hamas was founded in Gaza in December 1987 by, among others, a nearly blind quadriplegic called Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Israel tacitly supported Hamas at first, hoping it would undermine Fatah. But Yassin et al. rejected all negotiations with Israel and developed Hamas’s military capabilities to carry out operations against Israel: ‘Anything that would give the Israelis sleepless nights’ (Zaki Chehab,
Inside Hamas
, New York: Nation Books, 2007, p. 22). When Yassin was assassinated by Israel in March 2004, this only galvanised Hamas and in January 2006, the movement won the Palestinian national elections, ousting Fatah. During the Hamas takeover of Gaza in June 2007, many, but not all, Fatah activists fled to the West Bank.

8.
     Al-Qassam is named after Izzedine al-Qassam, born in 1882 in Jabla, originally a Phoenician settlement on Syria’s Mediterranean coast. A Shari’a judge, he later created a militant movement of
jihadi
cells that attacked Jewish settlements, to prevent Jews immigrating to Palestine. Al-Qassam was killed in northern Palestine on 20 November 1935, during a battle with British police, and hailed as a Palestinian
shahid
, or ‘martyr’.

9.
     According to the historian Gerald Butt, the land of Canaan ‘truly came into existence’ between 1800 and 1500
BC
, and Gaza became its capital. Canaan was later absorbed into vast ancient Egypt. The Assyrians occupied Gaza about 730
BC
, followed by the Babylonians. Their king, Nebuchadnezzar, so the story goes, built the luscious hanging gardens of Babylon some time around 600
BC
for his homesick wife, Amytis, who was pining for the trees and fragrant blossoms of her homeland, Media – now part of Iran. The hanging gardens were apparently destroyed by earthquakes after 200
BC
. But some cynical old men claimed they were never more than the poetic creation of a fabulist. Gerald Butt,
Life at the Crossroads: A History of Gaza
, Nicosia/London: Rimal Books, 1995, p. 27.

10.
   Gazans are permitted to visit the West Bank and Jerusalem, but have to obtain a permit from the Israeli authorities in order to do so: these permits are often denied, or issued for only a few days, or even hours. Palestinians from the West Bank and Jerusalem are not permitted to visit Gaza.

11.
   Palestinians use the Israeli shekel as their currency.

12.
   In 2007 there were approximately 650 permanent and temporary Israeli checkpoints across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, all manned by the IDF. (Source: Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs [OCHA].)

13.
   Every Gazan who wants to travel to the West Bank, Jerusalem or Israel has to secure a permit from the Israeli authorities to do so. This involves, first, applying to the Palestinian District Coordination Office (DCO) in Gaza, which assesses the application. If accepted, it is then passed to the Israeli DCO, which decides if the individual can pass through the Erez crossing. If so, the Israeli DCO in turn passes the application on to the Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a unit within the Israeli Ministry of Defence that coordinates civilian issues between Israel, international organisations and the Palestinian Authority. Permit applications from Gaza go to a unit within COGAT, called the Coordination and Liaison Administration of the Gaza Strip, headed by a colonel from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Gazans can receive permits to visit the West Bank for one day, or even just for a few hours. Unmarried Gazan men under 35 rarely receive permits. Gazans also need permits to visit, live, work or study in the West Bank.

14.
   See Gerald Butt,
Life at the Crossroads
, p. 87.

15.
   Martin A. Meyer,
A History of the City of Gaza
, New York: Columbia University Press, 1907, p. 121.

16.
   The PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, made this maxim famous back in 1995, when, at a speech celebrating the birth of his daughter, he said that anyone who did not accept Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine could ‘drink from the sea of Gaza’.

17.
   Eight refugee camps were established in the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the 1948
Nakba
(‘Catastrophe’), when around 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes by the Zionists and fled to Gaza, the West Bank and neighbouring Arab states like Jordan and Lebanon. Many Palestinians still keep the keys to their former homes. Jabalya is the largest refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. In total, UNRWA assists some 5 million registered Palestinian refugees across the region.

18.
   The city of Rafah was split between Egypt and Gaza in 1978, when Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David Peace Accord, and Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula. The buffer zone between the two sides, which stretches for 8.6 miles, is known as the Philadelphia corridor and is currently controlled by Hamas.

19.
   When Hamas took over Gaza in June 2007, they sacked all police and security personnel employed by the Palestinian Authority (PA), the majority of whom were Fatah supporters. Thousands of ex-police and others remain out of work in Gaza, but still receive their salaries from the PA, which wants to keep them on side.

20.
   Batis was loyal to the Persians, who invaded and occupied Gaza around 525
BC
as a prelude to marching on to their real goal, neighbouring ancient Egypt. Under their rule, Gaza became a citadel, a crossroads between Persian Asia and Persian Egypt, and continued to be a major regional trading hub.

21.
   In November 2005 the Access and Movement Agreement (AMA) was signed by Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to ‘facilitate the movement of people and goods within the Palestinian Territories’. The Rafah crossing opened that month and remained open until June 2006, monitored by international observers. However, exports from Gaza were not permitted, despite this having previously been agreed. From June 2006 Israel closed the Rafah crossing for 86 per cent of working days, citing security reasons. The crossing was sealed after the June 2007 Hamas takeover, when Hamas prevented PA officials from carrying out their designated AMA duties. (Source: Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs occupied Palestinian territory [OCHA-oPt], November 2006 report on AMA; and
www.aljazeerah.info
)

22.
   Intifada literally means ‘to shake off’. In September 2000 former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, which is sacred to both Jews and Muslims. Many Palestinians considered this a deliberate provocation. When some threw stones at Jews worshipping at the Western Wall, the Israeli military retaliated, killing five Palestinians and triggering the second intifada, which spread from Jerusalem to Gaza and the West Bank. When a ceasefire was finally agreed in February 2005, at least 3,307 Palestinians had been killed, including 654 children, and 972 Israelis, including 117 children. (Source:
crimesofwar.org
)

23.
   Drones are aerial vehicles with no human crew on board. Some carry ‘lethal payloads’, or missiles. Among other drones, Israel uses the Hermes 450, nicknamed Zik, which takes video footage and stills images.

24.
   Israeli administrative detention (AD) is detention without charge or trial, authorised by administrative order as opposed to judicial decree. Under international law, AD is permitted under certain circumstances. However, according to some international and Israeli human rights groups, Israel’s use of AD ‘blatantly violates these restrictions’ as it has ‘administratively detained thousands of Palestinians for prolonged periods of time without prosecuting them, without informing them of the charges against them, and without allowing them or their attorneys to study the evidence [against them]’. (Source:
btselem.org
)