Meet Me in Gaza (36 page)

25.
   According to the ICRC, Israel claims it has had no ‘Coordination partner’ in Gaza to facilitate the prison visits after the Hamas takeover. The ICRC states that Israel ‘[i]s entitled to take measures to ensure its security – but it is not entitled to prevent Palestinians from visiting their relatives in jail in Israel.’ Under Article 49 of the Geneva Convention, ‘Individual or mass forcible transfers as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power […] are prohibited [ … ].’ It is worth noting that Hamas denied the ICRC access to Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit.

26.
   
Dabke
means ‘stamping of the feet’ and this energetic line dancing is the most popular Arab folk dance in Palestine, Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. It originated in the Levant, so the story goes, when stone houses were roofed with mud and straw, which had to be stamped on to make it compact. The roofers developed
dabke
dances and songs to make their work more fun.

27.
   Mumtaz Doghmush established the Army of Islam as his private militia in 2006. When his ‘soldiers’ kidnapped Alan Johnston in March 2007, Mumtaz ignored pleas from Doghmush clan elders to release the journalist, who was later freed by Hamas. The Army of Islam is influenced by, but not affiliated to, al-Qaeda. Since taking over Gaza, Hamas has brutally stamped on the power of the Gaza clans, including the Doghmush, who used to wield huge power across the Strip. Alan Johnston’s kidnap may well have been an attempt by Mumtaz to reassert himself as a power figure in Gaza.

28.
   The Salafists are an extreme Islamic movement inspired by early Islam. The first three generations of Muslims, sometimes known as ‘the Pious Predecessors’, are the inspiration for their orthodox interpretation of Islamic law and practice. The Salafists are Sunni Muslims who believe that Islam has declined because pure Islamic teachings have been abandoned. A minority of them are violent
jihadis
.

29.
   The keffiyeh is a traditional Arab headdress, usually worn by men. Its distinct check weave has been described as the pattern of fishing nets. It was a trademark of Yasser Arafat, who was rarely seen without one.

30.
   In October 1956 Israel invaded Egypt, with the backing of Britain and France, which both wanted to topple President Nasser after he had nationalised the Suez Canal. Israel briefly occupied Gaza and the Egyptian Sinai peninsula until UN Emergency Forces replaced the Israelis in March 1957. Egypt regained control of Gaza and held it until the 1967 Six-Day War.

31.
   On 12 April 1984 four Gazans hijacked an Israeli 300 bus and drove it south of Gaza City, pursued by the Israeli military. An IDF unit then stormed the bus, killing two of the hijackers. The other two were captured alive, but killed in detention, apparently on the orders of the Israeli secret service, Shin Bet. (Source:
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/newly-released-papers-reveal-how-shin-bet-tried-to-hide-bus-300-killings-1.386889
)

32.
   Certain categories of Gazans are consistently denied permits to cross Erez, especially unmarried men under the age of 35, whom Israel considers the highest ‘terrorist’ risk group. In my own experience, local human rights workers are also frequently blacklisted.

33.
   The buffer zone was established in 1995 as part of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement (‘Oslo 2’). Originally it was 50 metres wide, but when the second intifada kicked off, Israel unilaterally extended the zone to 150 metres, all of it inside Gaza. From mid-2008 Israel extended the buffer zone to 300 metres, severely restricting local Palestinian farmers’ access to their own land.

34.
   A dunam is equal to about 900 square metres.

35.
   The Givati Brigade, formed in December 1947, played an active role in the 1948 establishment of the state of Israel. It now operates as part of the IDF Southern Command and its troops have been deployed inside Gaza during military operations. According to Palestinian historians, the brigade may have been involved in the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Dimra village during Operation Yo’av. (Source:
Palestineremembered.com/Gaza/Dimra/index.html
)

36.
   Between September 2000 and June 2008, 580 Palestinian children were killed by the Israeli military. (Source:
pchrgaza.org
)

37.
   Hani Sha’ban Naim was killed on 7 February 2008 at Beit Hanoun Secondary Agricultural School. He was 41 years old. (Source:
http://electronicintifada.net/content/seven-gazans-killed-day-israeli-air-shelling-attacks/3316
)

38.
   Gerald Butt,
Life at the Crossroads
, p. 78.

39.
   They were both at it: Israeli and Gazan forces fired volleys of missiles towards each other during the countdown to the 6
AM
tahdiya
on 19 June 2008.

40.
   For information on the Free Gaza movement, see
freegaza.org

41.
   The 1993 Oslo Accords were the first direct agreement between the government of Israel and the PLO. They were intended as a framework for future negotiations, during which ‘final status issues’ such as the status of Jerusalem and the right of return of Palestinian refugees would be settled. These issues, however, remain unresolved.

42.
   Sonic booms are shock waves caused by objects travelling faster than the speed of sound and can create enough pressure to blow out windows. Israel has frequently used sonic booms against the population of Gaza.

43.
   The small Israeli city of Sderot lies 1 kilometre from Beit Hanoun.

44.
   See Susan Beckerleg:
http//www.assatashakur.org/forum/they-all-look-like-them/1135-origins-status-african-palestinians.html

45.
   Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, ‘Holding Health to Ransom – GSS [Israel’s General Security Service] Interrogation and Extortion of Palestinian Patients at Erez Crossing, August 2008. See
phr.org.il

46.
   Extract from a review by Ibrahim Darwish of Gerald Butt’s
Life at the Crossroads
, published in
Al Quds al Arabi
, Vol. 21, Issue 6211 (Monday 25 May 2009), p. 10.

47.
   Figures from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.

48.
   None of the buildings surrounding the ‘Olaiwa home had been bombed and there was no evidence of fighting in the immediate vicinity. This indicates that the Israeli military either misfired a shell or else fired a shell at random that struck the apartment, killing Amal ‘Olaiwa and her four children.

49.
   Rory McCarthy,
Guardian
, 19 January 2009. Estimates vary as to how many of the al-Samounis were killed: McCarthy, quoting the head of Gaza’s Emergency Medical Services, reported forty-eight dead; the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reported twenty-seven dead. (Source:
http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8023:5-january-2009-amal-al-samouni-&catid=144:new-reports
); and the Israeli journalist Amira Hass, who spent almost four months inside Gaza after Operation Cast Lead, later reported twenty-nine had been killed. (Source:
http://www.haaretz.com/death-in-the-samouni-compound-1.7284
)

50.
   On 5 January 2009 three members of the Abdul-Dayem family were killed by Israeli flechettes (4-centimetre-long metal darts that pierce human bone); two other members of the same family later died of their injuries. (Source:
http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3802:war-crimes-against-children-&catid=47:special-reports&Itemid=191
) On 6 January, twenty-one members of the al-Dayah family were killed inside their home in Zeitoun when an Israeli bomb destroyed the house. Radwan al-Dayah, who was critically injured in the attack, died in hospital. Israel later admitted the attack on the al-Dayah home had been a mistake. On 16 January, Muhammad Shurrab was in a car with his sons Kassab and Ibrahim when their vehicle was shot at by Israeli soldiers. Kassab was killed instantly. Ibrahim bled to death in front of his father as the Israeli soldiers prevented an ambulance from evacuating him, though the attack took place during a three-hour ‘ceasefire’ agreed by Israel for Gaza civilians to move around, buy supplies etc. (Source:
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContentPrint/2/0/52467/World/0/Israel-to-compensate-Gaza-family-over-war-deaths.aspx
)

51.
   The tunnels in northern Gaza are not used for smuggling, but link houses together, creating passageways for fighters to move from one street to the next unobserved by the Israeli military.

52.
   Source:
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199405/gaza-contested.crossroads.htm

53.
   The Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities was set up in 1994, but has been very lax in preserving Gaza’s ancient treasures.

54.
   These were imitation Greek coins: small, fine discs of silver, engraved with the image of the goddess Athena and her sacred owl, but minted in Gaza during the Persian era, though Persian coins never circulated in Gaza. Two of these silver coins are now on display at the British Museum in London.

55.
   Source:
http://www.firstworldwar.com/diaries/sapperinpalestine.htm

56.
   There is another Commonwealth cemetery, in Gaza City, holding 3,050 graves of men who died during the First and Second World Wars. Like the cemetery in Zuweida, it is meticulously maintained. The Gaza City cemetery is tended by Ibrahim Jeradah (MBE), who has been the keeper of the cemetery for some fifty years.

57.
   The Saraya, in the centre of Gaza City, used to be the headquarters of the Israeli military in Gaza and is now the HQ of the Hamas police and intelligence services.

58.
   This massacre was first documented by the UN in 1956, and recently investigated by Joe Sacco in his graphic novel,
Footnotes in Gaza
, London: Jonathan Cape, 2009.

To all my friends in Gaza ... and to Ma

Published 2013 by The Westbourne Press

Copyright © Louisa B. Waugh 2013

The right of Louisa B. Waugh to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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