 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
A day in Gaza
© St. Petersburg Times, GAZA CITY, 8 a.m. -- To get to the beachfront street where Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat lives and works, you have to know somebody or be somebody. We are mere journalists -- not dignitaries or top officials of the Palestinian National Authority -- but we do know somebody. Or rather, our driver knows somebody: the young guard at the checkpoint. He waves us through. We enter a stretch that defies the popular image of Gaza: that of a wretchedly poor and crowded place, the squalid breeding ground of terrorists bent on driving Israel into the sea. In fact, the Mediterranean looks quite inviting here -- huge breakers crashing onto a broad brown beach -- and the road is lined with hotels and high-rise apartments that would not seem too out of place in South Florida. In better times, you could imagine row upon row of tourists contentedly baking in the Mideast sun. But now the beach is deserted and most of the hotel rooms and luxury apartments are empty. In the mid '90s, wealthy Palestinians from around the world sunk millions into construction projects in Gaza in hopes of a peace that never came. Now an apartment that cost $100,000 can be had for $50,000.
The headquarters of the Palestinian National Authority, or PNA, is an expansive, tiled-roof compound landscaped with hibiscus and bougainvillea. The homes of some government ministers are large and lavish. "There were rumors about buildings that cost $3-million," says our guide, Bassam. "The ministers were not known as rich people. While they were being built, people put slogans on the wall, "This is the price of selling Palestinian blood.' " All we can see of Arafat's place is an ordinary-looking concrete garage. Nor is the house itself very impressive, we are told. Since the latest round of violence between Israelis and Palestinians began 14 months ago, Arafat's wife and 6-year-old daughter have been staying in Paris. Arafat, so devoted to the cause of Palestinian statehood that he didn't marry until he was 60, seems largely indifferent to material things. "The president," Bassam says, "lives a simple life." * * * ON THE ROAD, 9:15 a.m. -- As we barrel along the two-lane coastal highway, we talk a little about the history of Gaza. Before 1948, just 90,000 people lived on this flat strip of sand and orange groves 25 miles long and 6 miles wide. After Israel declared its independence in '48, hundreds of thousands of Arabs left the new Jewish state either by choice or because they were forced out, depending on who's telling the story. Most Arabs in the northern areas of Israel went to the West Bank, then controlled by Jordan; other Arabs came here to the Gaza Strip, next to Egypt. Bassam's grandfather moved to Gaza from a village near Tel Aviv. Every so often, the old man returned to Israel to see his farm, which had been taken over by Israelis and eventually became part of Ben Gurion International Airport. "It really depressed him," Bassam says. "My father finally told him, "I'm not going to let you go back, it makes you too sad.' " * * *
"Son of a b--," they shout at the Palestinian border guards. "F-- you." When it was easier to cross the border between Egypt and Gaza, these women could make a lot of money buying cigarettes for $1 a carton duty free on the Egyptian side and selling them for $2.50 on the Gaza side. But now it's almost impossible to get across, and they don't like it. During the 1967 Mideast war, Israel captured Gaza and the adjoining Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. Israel kept Gaza as a buffer, but in 1979 agreed to return the Sinai to Egypt in exchange for full diplomatic relations between the two countries. As part of the peace treaty, Israel also agreed to keep the border between Egypt and Gaza open 24 hours a day. But since the new wave of violence began last year, Palestinians have fired at Israeli soldiers near this crossing, Israel says. As a result, the Israeli-controlled border is now closed about half the time for security reasons, and the traders have to wait days to get into Egypt, if they ever do. So they take their wrath out on the guards on the Gaza side, even though they too are Palestinians. "May you die," a 55-year-old woman yells at one. As the morning goes by, tempers grow increasingly short. To shouts and jeers from the crowd, guards drag a teenager out of one of the yellow taxis that shuttle Palestinians to the Israeli checkpoint. The boy doesn't have the proper ID, and the Israelis will send him back. The Palestinian guards also pull an older man out of a taxi, and they nearly come to blows. From their observation post, the Israelis can see that the situation is getting out of control. They send word to their Palestinian cohorts: Clean up your act or nobody crosses. Then, in a case of divine intervention, comes a familiar sound: the Muslim call to prayer. The women traders stop shouting; the men begin to pray. For 10 minutes at least, all is quiet at the Egyptian-Gaza border. * * * GAZA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, Noon -- According to the electronic display board, Flight 3701 from Gaza to Amman is on time at 5 p.m. Of course, it hasn't left at all since Feb. 13. That's the day the Israelis shut down Gaza's new $250-million airport to all commercial traffic, citing security concerns. Now the only things allowed to fly out of here are Arafat's helicopter and small private jet. Palestinians were ecstatic about the 1998 opening of the airport, which provided Gaza's only outlet to the world besides the crossings at Rafah and at Erez, on the Israel-Gaza border. The project had an international flavor -- a Moroccan architect designed the terminal, the Japanese government paid for the south wing, and President Clinton attended the formal opening. At its peak, the airport had 18 flights a day and employed 1,000 workers. Now, the only people here are a few security guards and the deputy airport manager, Abu Hassan. How does it feel to work in an airport where very little ever takes to the air? "It's like somebody died," he says. And goes back to watching an Arab soap opera on television.
* * * RAFAH, 12:45 p.m. -- We roll into Rafah, the city from which the Rafah Crossing gets its name, and drive through areas that look ever-more wrecked and deserted. Finally we come to a neighborhood near the Egyptian border where the only signs of life are a few boys on bicycles. Mohammad Dem, 13, takes us to the four-story building where his family lives and where his father, who owns a grocery store, kept his stock in a large ground-floor room. About midnight on Oct. 23, Mohammad and his brothers and sisters were asleep when Israeli tanks shelled the store room, starting a fire that quickly spread into the living quarters. The Israelis also fired dozens of bullets into the building, shattering windows and heavy steel and wooden doors. They even shot at the fire truck. Today, what's left of the inventory is a sodden, blackened, ankle-deep mess: All that is recognizable are some fused lollipops and melted cans. Amazingly, no one was hurt, but Mohammad's father estimates damage and losses at more than $100,000.
Israel controls the narrow strip that separates the Dems' neighborhood in Rafah from Egyptian homes right across the border. Israeli authorities had no specifics on the Oct. 23 incident, but say Palestinians in the area frequently target Israeli soldiers. A few minutes later, we find some Palestinian boys who admit they have done just that. Why? "Because the Israelis were planning to destroy more houses," says Bela Abu Taha, who is 15 but looks 10. "We do it every day. We throw stones, we throw cocktail bombs. We get close until it's one meter between them and us. We hide behind concrete walls. This is the only thing that separates us from them. If I don't have cocktail bombs with me, I'll go make them." Abu Taha says he and his friends pool their money to buy kerosene from a nearby store, telling the clerk that their mothers need it for cooking or heating. For 50 Israeli shekels -- $12.50 -- they can buy enough kerosene to make 100 molotov cocktails using Coke or fruit juice bottles. Abu Taha lives with his parents, eight brothers and four sisters in the Rafah refugee camp, one of several camps established for Palestinians who left Israel in 1948. Still inhabited and ever-more crowded, the camps are said to be prime recruiting areas for Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups. We ask Abu Taha if he knows what a shaheed or a martyr is, and he quickly answers: "Someone who sacrifices his soul for his homeland." Does he want to be one? "No." Abu Taha says he already has been shot three times in clashes with Israeli soldiers -- twice in the legs, once in the shoulder. He expects to be killed but says he doesn't worry about the prospect. "It's my homeland, I'm not afraid of dying. God will be with us." And if he survives the current intifada, what does he see as his future? "I see myself as an adult with a Kalashnikov in my hand." * * * ON THE ROAD -- As we leave Rafah, I ask our guide if he agrees with Israelis that some Palestinian acts have seemed especially bloodthirsty. I mention the incident last year when Palestinians killed two men that Israel said were army reservists who had simply lost their way in the West Bank. One of the killers was photographed with blood dripping from his hands and a big smile on his face. Don't things like that make you cringe? I asked Bassam. His reply is angry. "Why should I believe that these were two reservists? Why shouldn't I believe there are secret Israeli forces working 24 hours a day that have killed more than 80 Palestinians? Why should I blindly accept what the Israelis say? "This is a war and I want to see the two sides of the war. I do not accept condemning one Palestinian act as if it occurred in a desert. Why don't Palestinians have the right to get mad at what has been done to them?" * * * KHAN YOUNIS REFUGEE CAMP, 3 p.m. -- The notion is almost laughable -- Israeli soldiers hoisted high into the air on a construction crane so they can shoot at Palestinians. But what happened here Nov. 18 is by no means funny. Haijra Abu Lonz says Israelis perched in the bucket of a crane fired missiles at her house and two dozen other Palestinian homes, killing one man and injuring another. Now all that's left of her upstairs bedrooms are a charred copy of the Koran, some badly singed family photos and the shredded remains of the family's clothes and bedding. "It's winter," she says, "and I don't know how to manage." As a result of the 1993 Oslo peace talks, Israel turned much of Gaza over to Palestinian control. But about 7,000 Jews still live here, in settlements that are heavily guarded by Israeli troops and separated by barbed wire and barricades from Gaza's 1.2-million Palestinian residents. This refugee camp is the only place in Gaza that is on higher ground than the Jewish settlements. Israel says that Palestinians frequently fire down from here on Jews in the Gush Katif settlement, most recently last Sunday when three Israelis were slightly injured. To gain a height advantage, Palestinians charge, the Israelis erected the crane. That way, Israeli soldiers are in a better position to attack Palestinians and eventually drive them from the area altogether. "That's b--s--," Lt. Col. Olivier Rafovitch, spokesman for the Israel Defense Force, says later. "Maybe they think that but they're wrong." He says the crane is there only for a construction project. Violence in Gaza is so frequent that it's almost impossible to tell anymore who was the original aggressor and who is retaliating. But a French organization that is surveying conditions in Gaza says the Israeli settlements are to blame for much of the tension. "A very powerful country with a very powerful army cannot keep occupying another country and keep them in a state of complete deprivation," says Claude Leostic of France Palestine Solidarity. "The material destruction (of homes) is something terrible but the desperation of the people due to the deprivation of rights is also terrible." * * * ON THE ROAD, 4:15 p.m. -- Darkness is falling, and our guide and driver are in a hurry to get home. This is the holy month of Ramadan -- when Muslims are forbidden to eat or drink between dawn and sundown -- and it will soon be time to break the fast with the huge meal called iftar. But no one is going anywhere -- at least not the Palestinians. When it comes to moving around in Gaza, the 7,000 Jewish settlers take priority over the 1.2-million Palestinian residents. Israeli soldiers frequently block traffic while settlers cross a Palestinian road to get to one of the roads built solely for the use of Israelis. The idea is to prevent Palestinians from attacking Jewish settlers in their vehicles -- a not uncommon occurrence -- but one result is to cause monumental traffic jams on the two main roads used by Palestinian motorists. Thus we are sitting in a stalled line of traffic nearly a mile long, waiting while a few Israeli cars and military vehicles pass. A driver stuck in the opposite lane rolls down his window and tells us he has been waiting two hours. Tonight, the Jewish settlers will be home in time for dinner. But iftar will be late for hundreds of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. -- Susan Taylor Martin can be reached at susan@sptimes.com POST SCRIPT:Four days after we left Gaza's Khan Yunis refugee camp five Palestinian boys -- two brothers and their cousins -- were killed there on the way to school when one of them apparently stepped on or kicked an Israeli tank shell Thursday. Palestinian authorities blamed Israel for leaving undetonated shells near civilian areas. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said that an investigation is under way and that Israel shared the families' grief.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
