How Is Gaza?
By Flora Nicoletta
14 July, 2010
Uruknet.info
"Why Pharaoh is so arrogant? Because nobody stops him!" Palestinian saying
At present in Gaza the flame trees bear enormous balls of orange-red flowers. The frangipani trees perfume the streets with their white flowers which seem porcelain. Other big trees bear clusters of yellow or mauve flowers.
The Gazans love ice cream, are fond of pizza, adore their children, inundate their beaches and meditate about their fate. Many foreigners have always lived and worked in Gaza and they feel very well here. So one wonders: why is it compulsory to murder Palestinians, dispossess them, imprison them, expel them, occupy them, besiege them? Why and why?
There is a question always in our ears. The people ask: "Kif Ghaza?", how is Gaza? how is the situation? From the tone of their voice we understand they are not content. Nobody is content here. The man-made disaster that envelop Gaza and all Palestine has pushed them on the edge of an abyss. Many don't dream anymore of Jerusalem and Haifa. They dream or Norway and a Schengen visa.
How is Gaza? Open the publication of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), "Occupied Palestinian Territory, West Bank and Gaza, Closure Maps", June 2009. On page 15 there is the map of the 365 km2 of the Gaza Strip.
According to the 1993 Oslo Accords the fishing limit was 20 nautical miles, about 37 km from the coastline. The fishing limit enforced by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) from October 2006 was 6 nautical miles. The fishing limit enforced by IOF since January 2009 is 3 nautical miles, some 5.5 km.
On the western side of the Strip the coast is long 45 km. In the north there is a no fishing zone of 1.8 nautical miles; in the south, a no fishing zone of 1 nautical miles.
In the north at the border with Israel, in the area of Beit Hanoun-Erez, there is a large no-go zone and a concrete apartheid wall. When ends the wall starts in the north a double electronic wire fence with watch towers along the border with Israel and the fence follows all the eastern side of the Strip till the extreme south. In addition, inside the Strip there is a 300 m restricted area which runs along the double wire fence. Since one year the restricted area has been expanded further by IOF.
In the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip live 1.5 m people. At least 800 are in jail in Israeli and have been deprived of family visitation for three years. The Israeli navy fire at the fishermen, arrest them, confiscate their equipment. IOF fire at farmers working on their lands close to the "security belt"; at the workers collecting raw construction materials from ruins of destroyed buildings in border areas; at Palestinians and Internationals who peacefully demonstrate at the border against the establishment of a buffer zone. Furthermore, IOF conduct "limited' incursions into the Gaza Strip.
In southern Gaza Strip, along the border with Egypt, the Palestinians have holed a network of tunnels to bring in what is needed for the survival of the population. As a punishment tunnels are regularly bombarded by Israeli jets. Incidentally, the Israeli Occupation Power hole apartheid tunnels in occupied West Bank for Palestinian-only use in order to avoid any contact with the colonialist squatters.
In the area of Beit Hanoun-Erez there is since years in the sky a permanent "balon", i.e. a very large white object which has the shape of a whale and controls every movement with the help of a drone. In the south, we have seen another "balon" in the sky of Abassan El-Jedida village, in the Khan Yunis area, and heard the drone.
The Gazans are politically divided, like in any other country. However, the grand divide is not only between Hamas and Fatah. The tiny Christian community is against an Islamic rule. The left opposes Hamas. The left itself is composed of small groups which are not united.
In Gaza, Fatah has been dismantled. Only Hamas is with Hamas and Hamas is strong and governs. The present government was democratically elected in January 2006 in the course of the 2nd PNA election which took place after 10 years instead of 4 years, according to the law. In an extraordinary peaceful blitz the Gazans, the West Bankers and the Jerusalemites removed from their thrones the 11-year old Fatah rulers who were reining since 1994.
As soon as the last ballot was counted and the immense Hamas victory was incontestable the Sword of Damocles fell immediately on the entire Strip: international sanctions regime.
Munir, who is far from being Hamas and was an observer to the election like me, commented the other day: "The international community didn't like these elections because they were democratic and clean. Nobody had never seen that before. It was the first time ever in Palestine and in the Arab world. They were afraid other would follow suit."
For the world leaders it was an indigestible new reality. Six months later the long-time blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip was screwed further to the point of suffocation, on Thursday 14 June 2007, when Hamas took complete control of the Strip following fierce internecine fighting.
The Hamas government and the population have been subjected to all sorts of blows, humiliations, vexations, punishments, blackmails, insults, threats, intimidations by Israel and its allies who have added a pre-planned military assault in December/January 2009 which crushed the Strip. The aim of the massive Operation Cast Lead was to eradicate Hamas in 23 days.
How did the Israeli military, politicians, strategists and their foreign advisors think to eradicate Hamas? As say the Gazans, under every roof you find one brother who is Hamas and one brother who is Fatah. How could a smart military surgical operation separate Siamese twins?
Presently, in the police, in the security forces, in the ministries, in the Parliament, in the municipalities work Hamas people side by side with Fatah people. Once their faction was military defeated these Fatah people neither escaped to the West Bank or Egypt, nor went home waiting for the salary which arrives in bank every month from Ramallah to this day, nor returned with the whole family in exile - the very place they had left after the Oslo Accords. Many Fatah supporters or militants simply continued to work under the new Hamas government. These Palestinian patriots were rewarded with higher ranks and positions and at the very beginning received exactly the same salary, not less.
When begun the Cast Lead assault, the Police HQ was bombarded in Gaza City the very first morning and the Chief Police General Tawfiq Jaber was killed. Tawfiq Jaber was 18 months before a Fatah police officer. Among the huge number of officers who were killed during the same bombardment, one cadet wore under his black jacket a T-shirt with a very large portrait of Yasser Arafat, as we have seen on pictures. Only a Fatah militant could wear such a T-shirt while he was trained in front of the Police Academy.
During the Israeli military aggression for the new lifting of Gaza in 23 days many Hamas police officers were wearing their old winter Fatah jackets and were extremely brave and admirable. At that time a colonel, an ex-Fatah officer, told me he worked for his people and his homeland whoever are the Palestinian rulers. A few weeks ago the colonel has been promoted to the rank of general.
Last year I met in a ministry the director of a department. He has worked under the Israeli civil administration, i.e. the military occupation, the Fatah regime and now he works under the Hamas government. And his case is not unique.
Before the war I heard several times on Israeli radio that the big strategists expected the Gazan population to revolt against the Hamas government. Just we had to be patient, they said, to wait a little more. So I waited for their news because here there was nothing, except their attacks...
On Saturday 3 July Riyad Ez-Zaza, deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy, opened with Eng. Rafiq Mekki, the mayor of Gaza City, the Popular Freedom Market. Riyad Ez-Zaza said: "Despite the blockade we go ahead. Today we open the Freedom Market for 400 sellers. Today we also open the Palestine Communications and Technology Forum. Yesterday we have opened something else and tomorrow we'll do more. We continue on our path as if the siege doesn't exist. We ignore the siege and we find the way to proceed with what we have at our disposal."
The Palestine Communications and Technology Forum hosted in the Rashad Esh-Shawwa Center 50 expositors for four days. The direction of the Freedom Market is indicated in Wahda St. by a large and beautiful sign with the four Palestinian national colours, but the market itself is grim and gloomy.
Last year the mayor of Gaza City , who is an esthete, cleared the city from the street vendors and promised to build for them a market. The place will house 400 vendors. It stands on a large area which have already been paved in grand part with cement interlocks made in Gaza. A very large metal structure has been covered by plastic sheets, white outside and black inside, but there are already many small holes. The sellers have to build themselves their kiosks on the rented space. The work is still in progress.
For sure not rich people will work here. All kinds of zinc sheets and iron sheets have been collected and brought here. Many sheets are extremely old, most are second hand or third hand, a few are new.
It looks like an exhibition of all the different kinds of zinc and metal sheets available today in Gaza under siege. One who already sells clothing has peinted his kiosk in pink. Another kiosk still closed has been peinted with ice cream colours: chocolat and vanilla. A few people are already selling shoes and kitchen utensils displayed directly on the ground. At the moment the sight of the Popular Freedom Market is deeply depressing but it shows above all the steadfastness, the resistance and the resilience of the Gazans.
Rafiq Mekki tries to keep clean the city, plants trees and flowers in every empty space, but he suffers from nightmares. One of his nightmares is the municipal dump situated not far from the Freedom Market and close to El-Yarmouk Football Stadium, the Public Library and the Quattan Center for the Child. The mayor would like to move the municipal dump to another location, but he lacks the means...
Presently, three big campaigns are taking place in Gaza. One is against the spies and collaborators who had time to surrender till Saturday 10 July after some months of warning. The second campaign is about the prevention of road accidents caused by motorcyclists. In a large open space the Traffic Police have gathered 1,200 motorcycles confiscated from their owners who have to put their papers in order. The third one against drug addiction started on Saturday 26 June and will end on Thursday 16 September.
On the eve of the weekend young Palestinians took their American friend to the beach. Sitting on the blond and fine sand the journalist admired the magnificient sunset. He saw passing a donkey cart transporting an oven where are roasted delicious sweet potatoes... and he then watched the closed horizon. When he left the beach on the night he couldn't believe his eyes: the Gaza riviera was vibrant and full of lights. He exclained: "Oh! In America they will never believe me when I will report how is Gaza!"
- Flora Nicoletta is an independent French journalist who lives in Gaza. She is currently working on her fourth book on the Palestinian question.
