Hamas-dominated Gaza will support Palestinian independence if it comes but there is little enthusiasm for the policy, writes MICHAEL JANSEN
ISRAEL’S VAST Erez terminal is empty. Our footsteps echo on the polished floor as my colleague and I take our places at the blast-proof booth where an Israeli officer stamps our passports and wishes us good day before we enter the kilometre-long roofed, open-sided and caged walkway into Gaza.
A cool breeze blows in from the sea across scrub-covered sand as we encounter a procession of two dozen porter-pushed wheelchairs carrying Palestinian women, children and a few men blessed with Israeli permits to seek medical treatment in hospitals in Jerusalem and abroad.
Several clutch large envelopes containing medical records; a boy wears a surgical mask over his nose and mouth. Hundreds more sick and dying Palestinians await permission in besieged and blockaded Gaza where specialist care is not available.
At the walkway’s end we engage a battered eight-seater taxi to take us into Gaza city, pausing to register with Hamas immigration. We speed along the sand-swept highway past shuttered workshops and garages and swerve round a donkey-drawn flat cart piled with rubble from bombed and broken buildings gathered by two boys who should have been in school.
On the left is the factory where the rubble is crushed into gravel-sized bits for construction of buildings of one or two storeys.
Taller buildings need cement, iron rods for reinforcement and gravel. Gaza has none. Israel permits only UN agencies to bring in construction materials through the single goods crossing on which Gaza depends for all “legal” imports while tunnels running under Gaza’s southern border into Egypt provide smuggled goods, including construction material.
It is an hour earlier here than in Israel.
Gaza City is just waking up. Traffic is light as we make our way to Marna House hotel for an appointment with Amjad Shawa, co-ordinator of the network linking Palestinian civil society organisations. Over coffee, he says, 110 organisations and the network support the Palestinian UN bid for recognition of a Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
“We call on the Arab and Muslim worlds and friendly countries to support the people of Palestine” in the effort due to be launched when Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas addresses the General Assembly on Friday.
In Shawa’s view, this is the last chance for “the two-state solution”. Blue-suited policemen are directing jostling vehicles when we make our way to the centre of town where independent Palestinian lawmaker Rawia Shawwa greets us in her
constituency office.
“It has taken 18 years of fruitless negotiations [with Israel] for us to figure out we are going nowhere.” Nevertheless, the UN effort “is an important step”.
Nadia, a professional from the younger generation, disagrees. “I am not in favour of the UN bid. I am highly suspicious of any project that this leadership comes up with. The people of Gaza feel left out. We have no idea about what’s going to happen to Gaza.”
No flags are flying in anticipation of Abbas’s address, no bunting or banners decorate the streets. Gaza is ruled by Hamas which opposes the bid but is ready to accept the Palestinian state Abbas is demanding. Hamas has banned demonstrations supporting the effort but has said nothing about opposition rallies.
A businessman quips: “Hamas does not want to be on the same side as Israel and the US which oppose.”
Gaza’s 1.5 million people, 80 per cent of whom depend on foreign food aid, are preoccupied with power cuts, shortages of goods in the shops and massive unemployment.
Our driver loses his way on the journey back to Erez. We are trapped in narrow alleyways where jerry-built houses, pock-marked with shrapnel and bullet holes, loom overhead, blotting out the sun. Here and there new houses, schools and public buildings gleam with fresh paint.
Gaza is slowly rebuilding 2½ years after Israel’s latest military campaign. Only a few hundred families are still homeless. We hurtle down a rutted road where goats feed on garbage and a pile of rubbish smoulders.
We turn around, ask directions and eventually reach Erez, the way out. Leaving Gaza fills us with a sense of relief.