Anger, despair and a sliver of hope for Gaza — the road to ceasefire is scarred with suffering

Over the years, from the late 1980s until fairly recently, I travelled regularly to Gaza, spending weeks at a time in hotels and sometimes with Palestinian families in the refugee camps, getting to know them all and many of their inhabitants. While in Gaza, I travelled with and worked alongside members of the UN, various NGO groups and Palestinian journalists and medics.

Before I filed reports, I would interview various experts about the human rights abuses, chronic poverty and crippling siege that Israel, in conjunction with Egypt, had imposed on the Gaza Strip, a sliver of land with a population of more than two million, turning it into the biggest open-air prison in the world.

Several years ago, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had invaded Gaza, with tanks encircling the Shujaiya neighbourhood of Gaza city. Machinegun fire from the tanks in the streets forced everybody who hadn’t fled the area earlier to take cover indoors. Later in the evening, together with some of the young men, we crept to the rooftops to get a better view of the tanks surrounding the houses.

Despite the repetitive sounds of gunfire and missiles keeping everybody awake through the night, the young guys still managed to crack jokes. The next morning we went to inspect the damage. An Apache attack helicopter had blown out the windows of a nearby house.

In other incidents, my fixer and I would head to a more rural area of northern Gaza where heavily armed Palestinian gunmen from the various political factions had taken up positions while they shot towards the tanks. I would disguise my blonde hair underneath a cap to draw less attention to myself, but as we got closer to the Israeli tanks I would remove it, hoping that being foreign would make me less of a target from both the tanks and the white, zeppelin-like surveillance balloon hovering above. I never faced any problems from the Palestinian gunmen.

After the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993 between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, there was a sense of optimism and hope. Many nights in Gaza were spent underneath beach umbrellas on the beaches, sipping fresh fruit juices and enjoying the cool sea breeze as enterprising Palestinians set up little businesses.

Other evenings would be spent in the Marna Hotel closer to Gaza city, where some of the wealthier, trendier young Gazans would debate politics or play chess while smoking argila and drinking cappuccinos, regularly accompanied by slices of cake from the restaurant’s impressive cake display.

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Marna Hotel was a tranquil haven from the grinding poverty and despair of the surrounding refugee camps and frequented by journalists and NGO employees. It was tastefully decorated with eclectic furniture, wildlife paintings, fresh flowers and a piano.

Despite the misery of their surroundings, there were many Gazans showing creativity and initiative. One Gazan had built a museum dedicated to Gaza’s ancient history, which goes back to antiquity and the times of the Philistines. On display were ancient artifacts, including pottery shards, arrows, baubles and beads from the various occupations that had invaded and conquered Gaza throughout the centuries, settling temporarily before moving off elsewhere.

In 2007, after Hamas had won the last free and fair Palestinian elections in early 2006, the group pre-empted what was believed to be a plan by the Palestinian Authority, backed by the Americans, to overthrow Gaza’s unity government and take control of the coastal territory. It subsequently segued into a period of bloody civil infighting between the authority’s security forces and Hamas, which the latter won.

The regular suitcases of cash that Qatar had been sending to Hamas since 2018 – with Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu helping to facilitate delivery – as a means of exacerbating the rift between the authority and Hamas has been fairly well covered by the media. What is lesser known is that the Israeli military governor of Gaza in the early 1980s, Brigadier General Yitzhak Segev, helped fund and facilitate the establishment of Hamas, primarily as a bulwark against the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

Israel subsequently tightened its siege on the territory, which had begun in the 1990s. This included restricting the ability of Gazans to import many food, educational and medical items, as well as some dual-use items such as construction material and repair parts for generators and electricity pylons. Israeli rights group Gisha took the case to court and reported how Israel had basically put Gazans on a calorie-restricted diet, banning foods such as low-fat yoghurt and salmon, which had nothing to do with security.

Gazans trying to leave the besieged territory to travel abroad for medical, educational or other reasons were also prevented from travelling through the Rafah crossing into Egypt, because Israel controls Gaza’s population registry through which ID documents and passports are issued by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.

Although Israel withdrew its settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005, it still controls all border crossings (except on the Egyptian side of Rafah), the population registry, airspace, coastline, food, goods, electricity and water going into the territory. As such it is still considered in control of Gaza and an occupier, according to the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Israel also prevented the Hamas government from building either a sea port or rebuilding Gaza’s airport, which had been destroyed by the Israeli military.

Death tolls

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.