Meet Me in Gaza

by Louisa B. Waugh

  9. According to the historian Gerald Butt, the land of Canaan ‘truly came into existence’ between 1800 and 1500 BC, and Gaza became its capital. Canaan was later absorbed into vast ancient Egypt. The Assyrians occupied Gaza about 730 BC, followed by the Babylonians. Their king, Nebuchadnezzar, so the story goes, built the luscious hanging gardens of Babylon some time around 600 BC for his homesick wife, Amytis, who was pining for the trees and fragrant blossoms of her homeland, Media – now part of Iran. The hanging gardens were apparently destroyed by earthquakes after 200 BC. But some cynical old men claimed they were never more than the poetic creation of a fabulist. Gerald Butt, Life at the Crossroads: A History of Gaza, Nicosia/London: Rimal Books, 1995, p. 27.

  10. Gazans are permitted to visit the West Bank and Jerusalem, but have to obtain a permit from the Israeli authorities in order to do so: these permits are often denied, or issued for only a few days, or even hours. Palestinians from the West Bank and Jerusalem are not permitted to visit Gaza.

  11. Palestinians use the Israeli shekel as their currency.

  12. In 2007 there were approximately 650 permanent and temporary Israeli checkpoints across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, all manned by the IDF. (Source: Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs [OCHA].)

  13. Every Gazan who wants to travel to the West Bank, Jerusalem or Israel has to secure a permit from the Israeli authorities to do so. This involves, first, applying to the Palestinian District Coordination Office (DCO) in Gaza, which assesses the application. If accepted, it is then passed to the Israeli DCO, which decides if the individual can pass through the Erez crossing. If so, the Israeli DCO in turn passes the application on to the Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a unit within the Israeli Ministry of Defence that coordinates civilian issues between Israel, international organisations and the Palestinian Authority. Permit applications from Gaza go to a unit within COGAT, called the Coordination and Liaison Administration of the Gaza Strip, headed by a colonel from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Gazans can receive permits to visit the West Bank for one day, or even just for a few hours. Unmarried Gazan men under 35 rarely receive permits. Gazans also need permits to visit, live, work or study in the West Bank.

  14. See Gerald Butt, Life at the Crossroads, p. 87.

  15. Martin A. Meyer, A History of the City of Gaza, New York: Columbia University Press, 1907, p. 121.

  16. The PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, made this maxim famous back in 1995, when, at a speech celebrating the birth of his daughter, he said that anyone who did not accept Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine could ‘drink from the sea of Gaza’.

  17. Eight refugee camps were established in the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the 1948 Nakba (‘Catastrophe’), when around 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes by the Zionists and fled to Gaza, the West Bank and neighbouring Arab states like Jordan and Lebanon. Many Palestinians still keep the keys to their former homes. Jabalya is the largest refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. In total, UNRWA assists some 5 million registered Palestinian refugees across the region.

  18. The city of Rafah was split between Egypt and Gaza in 1978, when Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David Peace Accord, and Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula. The buffer zone between the two sides, which stretches for 8.6 miles, is known as the Philadelphia corridor and is currently controlled by Hamas.

  19. When Hamas took over Gaza in June 2007, they sacked all police and security personnel employed by the Palestinian Authority (PA), the majority of whom were Fatah supporters. Thousands of ex-police and others remain out of work in Gaza, but still receive their salaries from the PA, which wants to keep them on side.

  20. Batis was loyal to the Persians, who invaded and occupied Gaza around 525 BC as a prelude to marching on to their real goal, neighbouring ancient Egypt. Under their rule, Gaza became a citadel, a crossroads between Persian Asia and Persian Egypt, and continued to be a major regional trading hub.

  21. In November 2005 the Access and Movement Agreement (AMA) was signed by Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to ‘facilitate the movement of people and goods within the Palestinian Territories’. The Rafah crossing opened that month and remained open until June 2006, monitored by international observers. However, exports from Gaza were not permitted, despite this having previously been agreed. From June 2006 Israel closed the Rafah crossing for 86 per cent of working days, citing security reasons. The crossing was sealed after the June 2007 Hamas takeover, when Hamas prevented PA officials from carrying out their designated AMA duties. (Source: Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs occupied Palestinian territory [OCHA-oPt], November 2006 report on AMA; and www.aljazeerah.info)

  22. Intifada literally means ‘to shake off’. In September 2000 former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, which is sacred to both Jews and Muslims. Many Palestinians considered this a deliberate provocation. When some threw stones at Jews worshipping at the Western Wall, the Israeli military retaliated, killing five Palestinians and triggering the second intifada, which spread from Jerusalem to Gaza and the West Bank. When a ceasefire was finally agreed in February 2005, at least 3,307 Palestinians had been killed, including 654 children, and 972 Israelis, including 117 children. (Source: crimesofwar.org)

  23. Drones are aerial vehicles with no human crew on board. Some carry ‘lethal payloads’, or missiles. Among other drones, Israel uses the Hermes 450, nicknamed Zik, which takes video footage and stills images.

  24. Israeli administrative detention (AD) is detention without charge or trial, authorised by administrative order as opposed to judicial decree. Under international law, AD is permitted under certain circumstances. However, according to some international and Israeli human rights groups, Israel’s use of AD ‘blatantly violates these restrictions’ as it has ‘administratively detained thousands of Palestinians for prolonged periods of time without prosecuting them, without informing them of the charges against them, and without allowing them or their attorneys to study the evidence [against them]’. (Source: btselem.org)

  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 keffi
yeh 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.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The Westbourne Press

  26 Westbourne Grove, London W2 5RH

>   www.westbournepress.co.uk

  A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-908906-20-5

  eISBN 978-1-908906-21-2

  Printed and bound by Bookwell, Finland

  Louisa B. Waugh was supported by Creative Scotland during the development of this book.