Alistair Dawber, The Independent, 13 April 2013
The guide books warn that it’s very unstable and that tourists shouldn’t go there; the Foreign Office tells Brits that there’s a high threat from terrorism—don’t visit any part of the territory, it says, and if you do, there is no ‘our man’ there to help you out.
In truth, it is pretty difficult to get into Gaza anyway. Unless you are a journalist or work for an NGO, the likelihood is that you will get stopped at Israel’s airport-terminal-like border post at Erez, which governs who is allowed to enter the Palestinian territory and, more importantly in Israeli eyes, who is allowed out.
But once you do get permission to go to Gaza, you realise that it is not like anywhere else. After getting the necessary stamps in your passport, you take a long walk through an 800-metre or so long cage, overlooked by Israeli army gun posts and balloons fixed with cameras that keep an eye over what’s going on. Locals call it “the world’s biggest prison”, and it’s not difficult to understand why.
You eventually arrive at the first of two checkpoints, controlled by the Palestinian Authority and the moderate Fatah faction. Fatah doesn’t run Gaza, but since Hamas, which is in charge, does not recognise Israel, it will not inform the Israelis on their side of the border that you are coming back.
To think that Gaza City (the Palestinians refer to both the city and the 10km x 40km territory by the same name) is just a few kilometres from modern-day Israel is remarkable. It is like plenty of other Arab towns, just poorer, and after November’s eight-day war between Hamas and Israel, many buildings in the city centre lie in ruins, like collapsed wedding cakes, after being hit by missiles.
Gaza is about 5,000 years old and one of the world’s oldest cities. In that time it has been both a thriving port and, as it is today, a sprawling mess of refugee camps and poverty. According to the United Nations, 1.5 million people call it home, making Gaza one of the most densely populated areas on the planet. Of the 1.5 million inhabitants, 1.1 million are refugees; those who lived in what is now Israel before 1948 refuse to give up the belief that one day they’ll return to their former homes.
The UN predicts that by 2020, the population will be more than 2 million, and that GDP per capita of about $2,700 by 2015 is less than what people were earning in 1990. Hospitals need an extra 800 beds now and, by 2020, an additional 1,000 doctors and 2,000 nurses.
But why is life in Gaza so difficult? It is not hard to imagine the place as a thriving Mediterranean resort: the white beaches are gorgeous and the seafood—such as the tuna served to us on the beach by the fisherman Rachad al-Hisi—is peerless.
The obvious—if incomplete—answer is the blockade imposed by Israel, which justifies the sanctions on security grounds. Before last year’s war, more than 2,000 rockets from Gaza fell on southern Israel; in the past, militants from Gaza have launched manned attacks from the territory.
In 2006, Hamas, an ideological Islamic and militant organisation that, since its inception, has been committed to the end of Israel, surprisingly won elections in Gaza. The poll, still regarded as probably the most democratic in the history of the Arab world, ushered in international sanctions. The situation deteriorated the following year when a unity government between Hamas and Fatah, which controls the other Palestinian territory, the West Bank, collapsed amid grisly violence that resulted in the deaths of at least 120 people, some publicly executed, others after having been pushed from the top of tall buildings.
Following the battle, Israel and Egypt sealed Gaza on the grounds that Fatah was unable to provide security. Now Israel inspects most of what enters and leaves Gaza, and limits supplies; it is able to determine what materials reach people there, and what does not.
After the eight-day war between Israel and Hamas in November, Gazans report that there has been an increased supply of goods, but Israel, concerned about the prospect of rockets being fired at the south of the country and Tel Aviv, maintains its blockade.
The testimonies over the following pages are a small snapshot into life in Gaza, by people who can rarely get their voices heard.
This is not a scientific study of life in Gaza, more a portrait of interesting individuals we met there. There are many thousands like those we met, and though not suffering famine or the spread of deadly disease, for people in Gaza life is still desperate. The frustration is palpable and in a land that has a violent history, that frustration, mixed with an easy supply of arms and an obvious enemy, is a very dangerous mix indeed.
‘Because of the restrictions, we’re catching fewer fish’—RACHAD AL-HISI, FISHERMAN
Working with his younger colleagues, Rachad al-Hisi had spent the morning making repairs to a tennis-court-size green sardine net spread out on the beach that forms one of the boundaries of Gaza City.
Now 67 years old, al-Hisi has been fishing these waters since 1962. “Gaza is in a geographically bad position for fishing,” he complains. “We’re in the corner of the Mediterranean and the big, expensive fish don’t travel this far—to get them, we’ve got to go further out into the sea.”
For the first 20 years of al-Hisi’s life as a fisherman, that wasn’t a problem. He was able to fish wherever he wanted, and Gaza—one of the world’s oldest cities—was vibrant, with plenty of tourists coming to enjoy the beautiful beaches and keeping the price of the day’s catch high.
But that was then. With 14 children to support at home in Gaza City’s al-Shati or Beach camp for refugees, the one-third of a square mile web of streets and concrete that is home to nearly 90,000 people, life has become significantly more difficult for al-Hisi and Gaza’s other fisherman.
Rachad al-Hisi blames two groups: the Israelis and the Egyptians. When we visited al-Hisi, the Israelis would only allow Gaza’s fishermen to fish six miles from the coastline, a policy that changed to just three miles three weeks ago in response to rockets being fired from the territory into southern Israel during the visit of Barack Obama.
“We can only catch the big fish 10 miles out to sea—so how are we supposed to catch them now? Because of the restrictions we’re catching fewer fish and making less money,” he says. “We are always getting into trouble; because our boats are not fitted with sophisticated navigation equipment, we go after the fish and then all of sudden we’re seven miles out to sea and in trouble.
“But it’s not just the Israelis who are picking us up. The Egyptians also stop us fishing in their waters, but they are taking fish from our waters too. There are species that used to be plentiful here—sea bass, red mullet—we just don’t see them any more. Of course, it’s better to be arrested by the Egyptians rather than the Israelis.”
‘Before the fighting it was dangerous to be a farmer’—SAEED JNEAD, FARMER
We ask Saeed Jnead, a 53-year-old farmer, for an interview as he travels along a dirt track on the back of his donkey-pulled cart about half a mile from the fortified border with Israel. Within minutes, the jovial Mr Jnead has stopped, invited us to his farm for coffee and is surrounded by members of his family on the dusty road, wondering what on Earth we’re doing there.
Farmers, usually growers of olives, dates and citrus fruits, have been among the biggest losers of the isolation of Gaza. The Israeli army prevents them from getting too close to the security wall and in many cases, the farmers have lost large tracts of land.
But Mr Jnead, whose tooth-bereft mouth seems to be forever smiling, is clearly one of life’s optimists. “Life here since the war [the eight-day conflict between Israel and Hamas in November] has improved. Before the fighting, it was very dangerous to be a farmer. Believe me, when one of my sons went off in the donkey cart in the morning, I always worried about whether he would ever come back.”
Mr Jnead’s children, and their prospects in what is often referred to as the world’s largest open prison, is top of his concerns. “I want a peaceful place where my children and their families can be secure in their own land. I’m not talking about tomorrow, but we have to believe in the future, although things do change—you [the UK] used to occupy the United States, but look what’s happened now, look who’s stronger. It may be too late for my life, but that’s what I hope for my sons.”
Mr Jnead’s father planted the fruit trees on the farm in 1956, including the lemon grove where Mr Jnead takes us for a glass of thick Arabic coffee. It is where Mr Jnead has tried to work all his life.
He is someone who has felt the force of the Israeli army—his house was destroyed during what was then one of the regular incursions of 2004. “They came at midnight and in the morning. All of a sudden, my house was gone. I’ve still not had any explanation.”
But Mr Jnead seems to be the kind of person who would forgive all the past problems in favour of a lasting peace deal. “Peace is essential. Without it we will carry on like this, with this terrible life.” Sitting next to his young son, 13-year-old Ashor, who was recently stung on the eye by a bee, Mr Jnead adds: “What will he do with this life? I want him to be a doctor or a lawyer—I have the same aspirations as any parent in the West; but here, like this, what chance does he really have?”
‘We’re not political. Anyone can come to drink our coffee’—RAMADAN MALCHA, CAFÉ OWNER
Sitting in a seafront café just south of Gaza City, you can picture what the place could be like. It has all the natural benefits of a Mediterranean city, and if somehow a lasting peace could be guaranteed, it is not such a stretch to imagine Thomson Holidays offering all-inclusive breaks at luxury resorts there.
Someone who shares this vision, or perhaps more accurately, a version of it, is Ramadan Malcha. He’s the owner of the Estnbool Café, which is situated just off the beach. His establishment, he assures us, is named after the Turkish city.
We meet Malcha after stopping off in the Estnbool. It is a large cavernous place, and it’s not difficult to imagine how this, too, could end up as a popular destination for Brits looking for some cheap summer sun.
That may be a pipe dream, but nonetheless, Malcha says that business is booming: “We’re a cheap place for guys to hang out in and have a coffee, or for families to come at the weekends and have a meal,” he says, giving us his sales patter.
“All sorts of people come in here—we get business meetings, people using the beach and the unemployed who come here to pass the time. We’re not political, anyone’s welcome to come to drink our coffee—even if Ariel Sharon [the former Israeli prime minister] came here, he would be welcome, as long as he bought a coffee, and that wouldn’t cost him more than NIS 5 [5 New Israeli Shekels, about 90p].”
So all’s swell in Gaza, then? Not quite. Malcha Ramadan introduces us to his 19-year-old son, Yassir, who is set to get married in a few weeks’ time. “Of course, the main thing I want for my son is for him to be happy, but aside from that I want him to do better than I have done.
“I want my son to be a doctor, or maybe even a journalist, but that’s very difficult because the education system here is not so great.”
Elsewhere in the Estnbool, 33-year-old Mohammed Molhati has a less sunny outlook than Ramadan. A former construction worker, he has been unemployed for “some time”.
“Why would I blame Israel?” he says. “I blame Hamas and Fatah for their feuding—the only way to sort out Gaza is to dissolve the government, get rid of Hamas, get rid of Fatah and start a new government from the beginning.”
Why is he in the Estnbool that afternoon? “Because there’s nothing else to do.”
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