For internationals working in Ramallah there is often the sense that you are living on easy-street. I regularly find myself explaining that my quality of life here is much better than it was in London. My commute is a five minute walk, my rent is a third of what I paid in Brixton, and crime levels are so low to make south London seem like a den of vice and hate. The pressures that come with a military occupation are felt much less in the Ramallah bubble then elsewhere in the West Bank and as an Brit there is always the safety net of a budget flight home if things get a little hot.
For the committed NGO worker (read conflict junkie) it might appear that the Gaza Strip would be the place to go for a more challenging working environment. In some ways that is definitely the case. Life certainly is a little more tricky. Firstly, getting in and out requires coordination (euphemism for permission) with both the Israelis and the Hamas authorities – neither of which are particularly cooperative. The airport style security and questioning is fairly standard but the half mile trek through no-man’s land between the Israel and Hamas checkpoints leaves you looking over your shoulder and the wheels of you suitcase turning a little more rapidly than normal.
Secondly, there is an existential threat to your safety. Airstrikes and shelling are common and unpredictable, and although the Israelis are usually fairly surgical in their attack operations rarely do all bystanders emerge unscathed. All international NGOs have hefty security precautions with their associated limitations on the freedoms of their employees, mostly in the form of movement restrictions. If you work for a local NGO, you sacrifice that protection for the privilege of moving around more freely and being less isolated from the Palestinian population.
Gaza City from the window of the 12th storey apartment where I stayed as a guest of CRS, an big international NGO implementing humanitarian and development projects in the Gaza Strip. My first real taste of INGO luxury.
Thirdly, the Hamas authorities are more keen in sticking their noses in your life than the Palestinian authorities in the West Bank. For example, alcohol is not sold in Gaza and it will be taken from you when you are searched at the borders (unless you are a diplomat or NGO royalty - i.e. work for the UN or Red Cross). Big beardy brother has a hand in everything. On my visit last week an innocent stroll along the city harbour was interrupted by police who requested I hand over my passport and fill in a form. Al-Haq’s field researcher in Gaza is worried that the simple GPS device I took him for pin-pointing incidents would attract the wrong kind of attention and so it will need to be registered with the authorities. Who knows how long that will take?
Costa del Gaza
But all this is by the by. The day-to-day inconveniences of life in Gaza for foreigners pale in comparison to the debilitating pressures of life under blockade for Palestinians. Gaza is often described as the world’s biggest open air prison and for once such emotive imagery is not hyperbole. The prevailing nature of my 28-hour stay in this narrow, walled-in strip of coastline was of an extended prison visit. I had a chat with the inmates about their lives and hardships; had terse encounters with the wardens; and saw the destruction left behind when the Governer had felt like the prisoners needed a quick reminder of who was in charge. Luxuries are available to those who have the right connections and those lags at the top of the food chain are only allowed to remain there at the behest of those who keep the prison on lock down.
Construction materials are hard to find but ingenuity is most certainly not. These guys are using a a seemingly cobbled-together device for straightening mangled steel rods to be re-used. Maybe this happens elsewhere but I've not seen it before.
Of course, analogies can be stretched to breaking point and are only helpful on a superficial level. The reality is that Gaza has been under a full blockade since the Israeli disengagement in 2005. This blockade is illegal under international law. Recently the southern border with Egypt has been opened slightly but heavy restrictions on what goods and people can move in and out are still in place. For the essential facts and figures of the impact of this siege take a look at this Cheat Sheet put together by Gisha, an Israel human rights organisation doing good work on Gaza.
For a visual explanation of the situation, and in particular the deadly 'buffer zone' surrounding the Gaza Strip on three sides, check out this Google Earth tour that I put together last year.
Last week, I visited a neighbourhood of a village in the south of the Gaza Strip which lies within the high risk part of the 'buffer zone' In 2009, during Operation Cast Lead, the neighbourhood was flattened by bulldozers and two people were killed. Whilst the residents are now rebuilding they cannot farm their land because if they stray too far from their homes in the direction of the border fence they will be shot. It was quite a strange experience to sit drinking tea with one of the affected families, 50 yards from an area which is basically a shooting range operated by teenagers using remotely controlling high powered rifles to pick off shepherds and farmers.
This is an unmanned Israeli military tower. The land in the foreground is in the 'buffer zone' and is lying fallow because should the Palestinians farmers attempt to enter the area they will be shot by the remotely controlled guns mounted on the tower. In the background, an Israeli farmer works his land completely undisturbed.
The counter narrative, purported by pro-Israeli groups, is that the residents in Gaza are doing just fine - there is no humanitarian crisis, 5-star hotels flourish and whatever hardships exist are just the price Palestinians pay for electing an Islamist, anti-semitic terrorist group who want to see Israel erased from history. Only one part of that sentence is true. There is no humanitarian crisis. The word crisis cannot by applied to a situation that has existed for so long. Yes, thousands of Palestinians are deprived of their basic humanitarian needs but hundreds of thousands have their dignity and human rights violated every single day. Fortunately, Palestinians have learned to be pretty good at keeping their heads above the water. Which is just as well when the occupation amounts to 45 years of waterboarding.
More photos:
This house was flattened by an Israeli apache rocket two weeks ago during the latest round of air raids. They were aiming at the eldest son of the family who is connected to one of the militants groups firing rockets into southern Israel. He survived and so did everyone else. But thirty people were injured, many seriously. All the windows in the surrounding buildings were blown out, including those of the secondary school, only 50m away. (Altogether 5 civilians including 2 children were killed during the escalation in early March. More 80, mostly civilians were injured. Four Israelis were injured.
Silent and deadly - an Israeli drone circles the buffer zone.
You may have seen on the news that there has been a worsening in the fuel crisis in Gaza. Political wrangling between Hamas, the PA and Egypt have prevented much-needed deliveries and Israel continues to just drip feeds fuel into the territory as and when it choses. Meanwhile, Palestinians queue for hours at gas stations and hospitals patients die during to the electricity blackouts.
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