The blog back

Laila. Raising Yousuf. 25/07/07. I'm not sure how to begin after such a long absence. Maybe my apologizing to my readers for leaving you in the blue like that. Maybe by offering that it was a combination of factors- exhaustion, preoccupation (life, work, family…, maybe by saying there is no excuse at all. Sometimes you need a break from it all.

So much has happened since we left Gaza and in such a short period of time. If was mentally exhausting being there, it is even more overwhelming being away. And processing it all.

I was in Gaza during the months of May and part of June shooting a film (ok, two films) with my friend and colleague, one about the tunnels along Rafah’s border, another about the remarkable story of Fida Qishta and her attempt to establish Rafah’s only true recreation center amidst everything that is going on there. It was exhausting-but rewarding-work. We were in traveling to Rafah form Gaza City almost every day, for the entire day, in the middle of internal clashes that gripped the City where we live.

We had planned to leave Gaza around the beginning of June, with tickets booked out of Cairo June 7. My parents were to come along with us for a visit. As is often the case in Gaza, things don’t always go according to plan.



Rafah was open erratically during the month of May, and closed entirely in the week prior to our departure. We received word that the Crossing would open around midnight of June 6. Wonderful, we thought, at least we could make our flight, if only barely.

We spent 14 grueling hours on the crossing, along with thousands of other Palestinians, desperate to either leave or enter the Strip. Busload after busload, entire families and their children and spouses were clinging to the ceilings, crushed inside, or piled on top of the luggage in back. Some fainted. Others erupted in hysterics. Everyone had a reason to. There were mothers separated from their spouses. Students needing to return to college. The ill. The elderly. And those with nothing particularly remarkable to preface their reason for traveling with-it was their right, after all.







In the early hours, there was a chill, and we warmed up with sugary mint tea and bitter coffee. But by noon, the midday sun was fierce over our heads with no place to take shade. And so we waited. And we waited. And every time a bus would heave forward a few inches, our spirits would lift a tiny bit, everyone would cheer…


At one point, hundreds of anxious passengers, each following the advice passed down along the Rafah Crossing grapevine from those who had successfully made the journey across, began to pour across the fence into the Palestinian terminal-throwing their bags over first then climbing across themselves-‘it’s the only way you’ll get through today…in a place where there is no order or sense or logic to why and how this damn place opens, you have to find your own way across”. I thought of the tunnels, how one tunnel lord told us some people pay him $5000 just to get into Gaza via a tunnel when the Crossing is closed.



The Europeans “suspended” their operations as a result of the “chaos” for several hours. They eventually returned, but by the time the crossing closed at 2:30pm, we were left stranded on the Palestinian side of the crossing, with the Egyptian side only metres ahead.

It difficult to put into terms what it means when a territory of 1.4 million people’s only passage to the outside world is foreclosed for the majority of the time, and open for only a few meaningless, infuriatingly slow hours when it is open at all.

We returned to our home in Gaza City exhausted, demoralized, dehumanized. We received word the crossing would open again the next day. We debated whether or not to attempt to cross after the day’s events. We had already missed our flights out of Cairo, and attempting to explain Rafah to distant airline customer service representatives was never a simple task.



A few hours later, we were on the road again. We clung to the hope that at the very least, the crossing might be less crowded the next day. We were sorely mistaken. There was perhaps double the amount of people we saw the day before. This time, the packed buses extended way beyond the crossing. We waited till the afternoon. IT was only then we began to hear –through the taxi drivers-that some skirmish had broken out between Fateh and Hamas in Rafah, that the Fateh-led preventative security building there was surrounded. But we made nothing of it. “Same old cycle”.

Never could we have imagined what would happen in subsequent days.

We waited until the later afternoon. The prospect of our crossing became grimmer with each passing minute, and each bus that didn’t pass. We felt like we were going backwards, not moving forwards. Demoralized, my father decided he wanted to go back to Gaza City – “let’s just wait until next week, maybe it will be less crowded. We already missed our flight.” “No, wait, let me try one more thing” I suggested, remembering the advice of one passenger the days before-“you have to find your own way across”.

I had refused to give in to rule of the jungle the day before. But today, I realized if I didn’t do something quick, we would never get out.

We talked to a taxi driver we had met the day before-a sly, strong headed type you don’t want to get into an argument with, from the Abu Eid family in Rafah. He owned a beat up peugot that had seen better days. He mentioned he knew a way around the crossing-a path reserved for vehicles belonging to the security forces. Desperate, I asked if there was any chance he could take us through that way.

There were no guarantees we would be allowed through, but he could try. And so in a last ditch effort, he drove us to a security gate. We were met with staunch refusals , and “are you crazy-what will they do to us if we let you through!”…we pleaded with them, told them how we had waited 14 hours the day before. But still no pity.

Then, an empty bus on its way back from the crossing drove through. Our driver negotiated with him. He too refused, until he heard our story, saw Yousuf, and finally said “what the heck, come on, I’ll see what I can do…”. And so we crossed, albeit backwards. We drove into the Palestinian side of the crossing, passports already stamped from the day before. An officer saw us, remembered us from the previous day, and let us through hurriedly. As we were getting ready to depart, a European monitor greeted me. “Hello, how was your day?”. How was my day? Is this guy for real?

“Difficult. The crossing is very difficult.”

“Oh but at least, it’s better than yesterday, at least people are crossing.” It was then I realized these monitors were completely detached from the reality beyond the few square metres they…well…monitored in the sanitary confines of the terminal, and back again, 1 kilometre, to their headquarters in Kerem Shalom.

And so by evening, we were in Cairo. And slowly, within the coming days, news began to filter through about what was happening in the Gaza we had only just left behind, the Gaza whose gates were closed shut just after we had left it, and whose gates remain shut to over 6000 people, 19 of whom have died so far.





So maybe you can begin to understand what I mean by mentally exhausting, having left a place where I desperately long to be, even in the worst of circumstances, and yet where I would have been stuck against my will, away form Yassine.

My parents are with me. It is a mixed blessing. My grandmother passed away last week, and my mother couldn’t be there to grieve with her family. Some Palestinians with foreign passports have been allowed through Erez into Gaza, but for those with Palestinian Authority passports (which we carry, and which Abbas has decreed null and void unless issued from his new dominion in the West Bank…) there is no alternative other than Rafah. I’ve had so many thoughts about what’s happening. But it’s all been so overwhelming, so unbelievable; that there can be such collusion, both regional and global, so much bullshit, with so little protest…

And of course the icing on the cake is the recent Haaretz report that Palestinian sources said PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas asked Israel (and Egypt) to keep the crossing closed to prevent the movement of people from Egypt to the Gaza Strip for fear that “thousands of people without supervision” could enter Gaza and strengthen Hamas. Something, not surprisingly, that Erekat and co. deny.

Rafah Crossing has been closed for 45 days now. There are food supply shortages. Electricity shortages. Yet the internal situation remains calm, say family and friends.

When, I wonder, will the global conscience finally awake?

http://a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/2007/07/blog-back.html

Woman’s Death Raise the Number of Deaths at the Crossing Point to 16

Further Deterioration to Humanitarian Conditions of Palestinians Struck at Rafah International Crossing Point

On Tuesday, 17 July 2007, Sanaa’ Ahmed ‘Ali Shanan, 29, from the northern Gaza Strip town of Jablaya, married to Jamal Saleem Shalha and a mother of 3 children the youngest of whom is 6-month-old, died at an Egyptian hospital. Her body has been kept at the hospital pending the approval of Israeli authorities to be allowed into the Gaza Strip. Thus, the number of Palestinians stuck in Egypt who died has increased to 16, most of them are patients who had received medical treatment at Egyptian hospitals and their health conditions deteriorated due to long waiting under inhuman conditions at the crossing point.

Sanaa’ Ahmed ‘Ali Shanan had been stuck in Egypt for at least 35 days. According to her brother, she was transferred by the Palestinian Ministry of Health to Nasser Institute Hospital in Cairo nearly 2 months ago to undergo medical checking for her chest. The medical checking concluded that she was suffering from pulmonary fibrosis. She had remained in the hospital for 10 days, before she traveled towards Rafah International Crossing Point to go back to the Gaza Strip. As the crossing point was closed, she was forced to go to al-‘Areesh town, waiting for the crossing point to be opened. She went more than once to the crossing point, and she had to spend more than one night near it. She then stayed in the Egyptian town of Rafah, where she stayed with her uncle. During her stay in Rafah, on Monday, 16 July 2007, her health condition deteriorated. She was evacuated to the hospital, but she died at approximately 11:00 on Tuesday. Her body has been kept at the hospital pending the approval of Israeli authorities to be allowed into the Gaza Strip.

Thus, the number of Palestinians stuck in Egypt who died has increased to 16, most of them are patients who had received medical treatment at Egyptian hospitals and their health conditions deteriorated due to long waiting under inhuman conditions at the crossing point. Two other Palestinians also died in a car accident while they were on their way to the crossing point. IOF have refused to allow the entry of the bodies of the deceased through Rafah International Crossing Point, and have allowed their delayed entry through Karm Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing.

The continued closure of Rafah International Crossing Point, the sole outlet of the Gaza Strip to the outside world, has created a humanitarian crisis for at least 6,000 Palestinians, who have been stuck in Egypt, especially in al-Areesh and Rafah towns, waiting to be allowed in the Gaza Strip. This figure includes at least 1,200 patients who had traveled to Egypt to receive medical treatment at its hospitals, hundreds of families who live abroad and arrived in Egypt to travel to the Gaza Strip to visit their relatives, and hundreds of university students who wish to spend their summer vacation with their families in the Gaza Strip. Many of these Palestinians have run out of money due to their unexpected long stay in Egypt, and they are threatened by diseases due to the lack of basic sanitation services. Additionally, the Egyptian Authorities have continued to hold hundreds of Palestinians at al-‘Areesh Airport, nearly 50 kilometers away from the crossing point, worried of their possible long stay in Egypt due to the closure of the crossing point.

PCHR is deeply concerned over the deteriorating humanitarian conditions of Palestinians stuck at Rafah International Crossing Point and neighboring Egyptian towns. PCHR is shocked by the failure of the international community and United Nations agencies to act to end the suffering of these Palestinians through pressurizing towards the opening of the crossing point. The closure of border crossings of the Gaza Strip, especially Rafah International Crossing Point, and the restrictions imposed by IOF on the freedom of movement of the Palestinian civilian population constitute a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, especially the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.

In light of the above:

1) PCHR calls upon the international community, particularly the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, to immediately intervene and exert pressure to ensure the reopening of Rafah International Crossing Point in order to end the suffering of thousands of Palestinian who have been stuck at the crossing point.

2) PCHR calls upon the international community to take necessary stop to compel Israel to stop the policy of collective punishment practiced against the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip, manifested in the closure of all border crossing and the restricted movement of persons and goods.

Public Document

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For more information please call PCHR office in Gaza, Gaza Strip, on +972 8 2824776 - 2825893

PCHR, 29 Omer El Mukhtar St., El Remal, PO Box 1328 Gaza, Gaza Strip. E-mail: pchr@pchrgaza.org, Webpage http://www.pchrgaza.org

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Behind Closed Borders: One Month of Slowly Dying at the Egypt-Gaza Border

Rafah Today. 17/07/07

“I feel like our lives don’t matter to the European Union observers and Israel—they never care. Aren’t we human beings like them?”

An impossibly crowded area. Chaos. A slow, imprisoned death. This, briefly, is the appalling life—though it is hard to term it living—at the Rafah border.

Terrible food, sparse water, poor hygiene, and inadequate shelter. The conditions are ripe for tragedy. Seriously ill people face preventable deaths as, despite their desperate need of medical care, the Rafah border remains closed, preventing passage to medical facilities and to safety back home. For Gazans, it is the equivalent of shutting down Los Angeles airports and banning all other transportation while F-16s, helicopters, and warplanes hover over the static population of the city, ensuring no one can make it back home.

For over one month, at both the Palestinian and Egyptian sides, people have been waiting at the Rafah border –without medicine, with little to no food or water, shelter-less and blistering under the searing Gazan summer sun. All are waiting for the first of 7 consecutive gates to be opened, which will allow the stranded thousands to cross into Gaza or out to seek medical help.

The Rafah border is strictly controlled by Israel, closely monitored by video-cameras. Israel is not allowing the border to open, despite previous agreements to keep the crossing open for 24 hours. Slighting that agreement, Israel hasn’t opened it lately. So, each day ordinary citizens are paying the price, one which comes at the cost of health and life! At least 28 have died as a result of the strict denial of passage to and from Gaza at the Rafah crossing, completely closed since June 10, where nearly 6,000 Palestinians wait without adequate food, water, or shelter in the intense sweltering heat of summer. Even those with severe medical emergencies are being denied passage.

Patients have the right to medicine, children to drinking water, and people to respect—at the very least respect as humans, not to mention as Palestinians, Muslims, or Arabs. Frequently I wonder, how can anyone allow human beings to suffer like this, to be kept waiting even though many are only a tantalizing half an hour away from home. Yet their proximity to home has no impact on their reality: they are stuck, trapped, in another country without the basic services of citizens. Where is the international outrage and action?

It is impossible to fathom that ambulances should be held back with suffering people in critical need of medical care following operations in hospitals in Egypt and other Arab countries. Additional salt in their many wounds comes with the loss of nearly 6000 people’s suitcases.

Over phone, 25 year old Mohammed Abu el Karash, with an injured backbone and who has returned from Nasser hospital in Cairo, explained how he was kept waiting inside the ambulance for 13 hours before he gave up and went back to the Cairo hospital: “I have tasted death many times. I can’t move at all, even to go to the restroom—I’m waiting for the international community to let us back to our homes, immediately, to end our undue and extended suffering at the border,” he said.

Added to the border troubles are the deaths and injuries from repeated Israeli invasions in the last weeks. A July 5 invasion of Al Boreij refugee camp in central Gaza left 11 dead, including 3 civilians, and over 30 injured, including many children. In the same incursion, a clearly unarmed Palestinian cameraman was shot repeatedly in both legs, resulting in their amputation, by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) soldiers, in the latest of many attacks on journalists.

“I feel like our lives don’t matter to the European Union observers and Israel—they never care. Aren’t we human beings like them?” he asked.

Israel is currently carrying out a new military incursion in southern Gaza, particularly the Rafah area close to the very border where many of the thousands of civilians are stranded. Heavy shelling from tanks has injured many civilians and caused severe damage to numerous homes.

http://rafah.virtualactivism.net/news/todaymain.htm

Palestinians in Sinai desperate to return to Gaza

RAFAH, Egypt (Reuters). 17/07/07. Khowla Salah al-Ghalban, nine months pregnant and barely able to move, lies on a concrete floor in the Egyptian border town of Rafah as flies buzz around her. She hopes to make it home to Gaza before her baby comes. Ghalban, 24, traveled to Saudi Arabia late in her pregnancy to have a cancerous tumor in her abdomen removed, but returned to find a closed border that forced her into a cramped shelter with 14 other Palestinians. Ghalban is one of an estimated 5,000 Palestinians stranded in dusty Egyptian towns in northern Sinai. Many of them are living in cramped low-budget hotel rooms or sleeping on mats on the floor in bare concrete shelters as money runs out.

"I will give birth any day," said Ghalban, taken in by a Palestinian community leader who keeps a house in Rafah. "But my husband and my home are in Gaza and I have no money to go to the hospital. I want to go home."

The Rafah crossing point into Gaza -- the impoverished strip's main outlet to the outside world -- has been largely shut since June 9, shortly before Hamas Islamists routed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement and took control of the territory.

While the stranded Palestinians include some holidaymakers, Egyptian officials said most are Gazans like Ghalban who sought medical treatment abroad. Many show off fresh surgical scars and present visitors with medical reports detailing their treatment.

The Egyptian side of Rafah, where many of the Palestinians have sought shelter, is a sparsely populated patch of sand littered with garbage and dotted with low-rise concrete housing and frequent security checkpoints.

HULKING GUARD TOWERS

A chain of hulking guard towers and a rusting metal wall are all that divide the quiet, dusty Egyptian Rafah border town from shell-damaged Palestinian Rafah in densely populated Gaza.

Although Palestinian and Egyptian officials technically control the crossing, it can be blocked by Israel. The European Union decided to cut down its monitoring mission at the crossing earlier this month because it was unclear when it would reopen.

Proposals to allow stranded Palestinians to cross into Gaza through Israel's Kerem Shalom crossing have run into obstacles. Some Palestinian officials object to using that crossing because it is subject to Israeli controls.

In the meantime, Palestinians in both Rafah and el-Arish in northern Sinai say they are rapidly running out of money and complain of inadequate assistance.

"The U.N. has not come to help, nor has any international aid agency, or the Muslim Brotherhood ... We are running out of money. Where will we go? We'll have to go to the streets," said Zuheir Abu Malouh, who has an amputated leg and was living in two cockroach-infested rooms in el-Arish with 18 other people.

Aid agencies said a recent U.N. assessment mission to Sinai found most Palestinians were managing to get by on their own, and were in better shape than during some previous closures.

"The big concern is if this thing drags out. Because even if you can support yourself for a while, if it keeps going indefinitely it begins to strain all those resources," said Erma Manoncourt, a UNICEF representative in Cairo.

Last week, Egypt deployed hundreds of additional police to reinforce its border over fears that Palestinian militants could try to storm it after around 500 Palestinian demonstrators in el-Arish demanded its reopening, security sources said.

In the summer of 2006, Hamas gunmen blew a six-meter (20 foot) hole in the Gaza-Egypt border wall, allowing nearly 1,000 stranded Palestinians to cross home during a border closure.

AIRPORT CLASHES

At least 10 Palestinians have died in Egypt since the border closed due to complications from pre-existing medical conditions, Egyptian medical officials said.

On Tuesday, clashes broke out between Egyptian police and Palestinians detained at the al-Arish airport who tried to break free after complaining of dwindling funds and a lack of food and medical supplies, security sources and witnesses said.

Three people were injured during the clashes after Palestinians started breaking windows in the room where they were being detained and security men hit them with sticks, security sources and Palestinian witnesses said.

Those Palestinians were among close to 100 who have been detained at the airport since the border closure after arriving in Egypt without proper visas.

Those detained at the airport include 22-year-old Raafat al-Jammal, who had sought medical care in Jordan after being wounded in a blast in Gaza's Beach refugee camp.

"I have burns all over my body. I should be in a hospital in Gaza or under good care at home," he told Reuters by telephone from the room where he was being detained at the airport.

"There are no good doctors or medical equipment or medicine here," he said.

(Additional reporting by Yusri Mohamed in Sinai, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Cynthia Johnston in Cairo)

© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved.

Al Mezan condemns the closure of Rafah crossing The international community must not politicize human suffering

15 July 2007

Over a month after the complete closure of Rafah Crossing, the suffering of some 6,000 Palestinians waiting at Egypt's border with Gaza continues. Hundreds others have been waiting inside Gaza to access healthcare, education and other services abroad.
The suffering of thousands of civilians, including the sick, elderly and children has not generated adequate responses from the part of the international community to ensure their safe passage to their homes and access to vital services. As the closure of the Crossing continues, civilians face the risk of death, severe suffering and loss of significant education and work opportunities. Hundreds others face the risk of missing joining their families abroad after the expiry of their visas. Many of those were compelled to come to Gaza and register their children so that they didn't lose their nationality.

Israel has closed or restricted the movement through the Rafah Crossing since 26 June 2006. On 9 June 2007, it ordered complete closure of the Crossing. Since then, it opened on two occasions allowing for a few hundreds of people to enter the Strip.

Al Mezan Center for Human Rights strongly condemns the severe restrictions on movement imposed by Israel on Gaza's civilian population; especially at the Rafah Crossing. The Center questions the silence by the international community as civilians suffering continues. The closure is the main cause of numerous kinds of rights violations in Gaza and has to stop.

Al Mezan also condemns the closure of Rafah Crossing as a measure of collective punishment by Israel, which continues to use it as a political tool in a flagrant disregard of Palestinians' human rights.

The Center therefore calls on the international community, and especially the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Times of War (1949), to intervene and bring to an end the violations of human rights and dignity to which Palestinian civilians have been subjected at the Crossing. The Rafah Crossing must reopen without delay.