‘The border crossing is closed.’
‘Israeli tanks have crossed into Gaza.’
‘Why?’
‘A soldier has been kidnapped by the Hamas, there are helicopter gunships everywhere, it’s not safe to go out.’
‘They said something about a tunnel under the border and an attack on an armoured personnel carrier with rocket propelled grenades.’
‘Shit!’
‘They’ve blown up several Israeli vehicles and taken a prisoner,’ said Slimane.
‘The border will be closed for several days,’ announced Collins.
‘Right, the Egyptians have reinforced their side of the border with extra troops in case the prisoner is moved to Egypt through one the tunnels the militants have dug to the Egyptian part of Rafah.’
‘What shall we do?’
‘Stay calm and stay put! We’d be better back in Gaza City than here.’
‘How the radio says the Israel aircraft have attacked several bridges in central Gaza, they want to prevent militants from moving their prisoner to the Jabalya refugee camp, that’s on the outskirts of Gaza City.’
‘Okay,’ said Tim to Slimane, ‘let’s use the coast road again if it’s too dangerous on the main road. But first get that press sign on the roof.’’
They turned around and headed back in the same direction to the coast road.
‘Can we get out by sea?’
‘No the Israeli’s have patrol boats everywhere,’ replied Tim.
‘If things get bad it could be a possibility, one of my brothers could drop you off across the border, he has a fishing boat.’
‘Won’t the patrol boats fire on you?’
‘No, the fishing boats have signals, in the worst case you could be transferred on to one of the patrol boats.’
‘Only if things become really bad!’
‘The advantage of the sea is it does not have any checkpoints,’ Slimane laughed. ‘The problem is the IDF stops Palestinian boats from going out to sea more than ten kilometres. It’s bad for our fishermen they can’t make a living.’
They arrived back in an almost silent Gaza City at ten, the streets were deserted and there was an atmosphere of fear as they checked in again.
Together in O’Connelly’s room they watched the television that announced that IDF tanks and troops had moved into southern Gaza, in an effort to get the release soldier seized Sunday in an attack on a military position near the Gaza border.
‘So the Palestinians took a prisoner,’ said O’Connelly. ‘What’s the big deal, there’s a war going on?’
‘Here the rules are different,’ said Slimane, ‘if we capture an Israeli soldier, it’s called abduction by the Israeli’s, nice word eh! If they take one of our men, it’s called preventive action against terrorist infrastructures.’
On CNN they watched the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warn that Israel would not baulk at extreme action to free the captured army corporal. An IDF operation, called Summer Rain, was launched after failure to release the corporal. The incursion was the just first step of the operation.
‘The military action will continue in the coming days,’ Olmert said. ‘We do not intend to reoccupy Gaza. We do not intend to stay there. We have one objective, and that is to bring Gilat home,’ CNN reported.
IDF troops penetrated more than a kilometre into the southern area of Gaza, which in only eight kilometres wide, deploying tanks and armoured vehicles to the east of Rafah, and Dahaniyeh airport.
The Palestinians had fired a number of their home made Qassam rockets into the Negev area, but there were no casualties.
Suddenly the television went out, Laura tried the light switch, nothing, it was a power cut. They left the room and went down to the coffee shop, the desk announced the Israeli air force had attacked the city’s power station. Israeli missiles had plunged Gaza into darkness. The only gain for the Israelis was to punish the poor suffering citizen, whose only sin was to have voted for the Hamas after decades of Arafat’s corrupt rule.
‘The concierge says that armed militants have taken up positions in the Shajaiyeh, that’s near to the border, not far from here, to resist any incursion by the IDF, they’ve told the residents to leave the area.’
‘So what shall we do, wait like sitting ducks?’
‘No we’ll go to the coast, now!’
Late that evening they sat in the same seafront restaurant, its windows now taped over and the lights low, they were sufficiently experienced and wealthy enough to be equipped with a small generator. However, they had little appetite, the situation was worsening and there was no indication as to how long it could last. Tim Collins had contacted the UN office in Gaza for instructions concerning foreign residents and was simply told to seek cover away from the border area.
Collins told them of the home made rocket factory he had visited nearby to Gaza City. Describing a garage like workshop where they made the one metre long tubes fitted with fins. The tube was filled with home-made propellant made with a coffee grinder and a kitchen mixer from common household chemicals, and the warhead filled with explosives. They could make several a day. Though the rockets were on occasions deadly, they were no match for the IDF forces, the main goal of the Palestinians was to create fear amongst Israelis so as to weaken their support for IDF aggression.
The IDF retaliated to the home-made rockets with heavy artillery shelling, hitting farms, housing and with shells falling as far as the beach area, killing a number of civilians.
Just before the midnight the IDF crossed the border, the first major ground offensive in the Gaza Strip since Israel pulled its troops out in 2005. The Hamas exhorted its fighters to resist.
O’Connelly dug into his bag and pulled out his Israeli mobile phone, it was working, he dialed Benny Weinfeld’s number at the Ha’aretz offices.
‘Weinfeld.’
‘Benny, this is Pat O’Connelly.’
‘Hi Pat, nice to hear from you. How’s your story going?’
‘Bad, listen Benny we’re caught up in Gaza City, we’re in trouble and want to get out!’
‘Gaza City! Boy oh boy, that’s bad, what are you doing there?’
‘A long story, but if you get us out then it’s yours!’
‘Where are you exactly?’
O’Connelly gave him the address and their numbers and Weinfeld promised to call them back.
The television announced that Olmert had ruled out any negotiations concerning a prisoner swap and vowed that Israel would respond fiercely to recent attacks from Gaza.
That evening one of Slimane’s cousins who had run a small business told them how life had become so difficult.
‘Now I can't even go to visit my family near Bethlehem, about an hour’s drive from here. It’s as though we lived in a different countries, completely cut off, before it was bad, it used to take up to five or six hours, if there was no problem at the checkpoints, now it’s worse.’
‘What about imports?’
‘We can’t import food from Israel or from abroad, our trucks are blocked at the checkpoints, sometimes they have to wait several days to get through. Now it’s impossible to travel to Tel Aviv for business, before it took as long to go to Tel-Aviv as it takes to fly to London, in addition we were humiliated at the checkpoints, forced to undress by soldiers, treated like dogs.’
74
Sympathy and Identity
The Legacy of Solomon Page 74