Not From Gaza

by Tony Davies

8 March 2004

"The main difference between Bosnia and Palestine is that ethnic cleansing in the former took place in the form of dramatic massacres and slaughters which caught the world's attention, whereas in Palestine what is taking place is a drop-by-drop tactic in which one or two houses are demolished daily, a few acres are taken here and there every day, a few people are forced to leave" - Edward Said

"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral." - Paulo Freir

I came home at the end of February after a month in Jerusalem and the West Bank. I had hoped to work on a paper about cancer with a doctor in Gaza City, but I was turned back at the checkpoint controlling entry into the Strip, although the Palestinian Ministry of Health had requested the Israeli military to let me through. In addition to the military's general disregard of international humanitarian law, their refusal to let people from Israel-Palestine or from abroad into Gaza is illegal: Article 116 of the IV Geneva Convention prohibits an occupier from restricting visitors from entering the occupied territory.

Why was I refused entry into Gaza? The Israeli army does not want people to see and make known what it is doing there. This picture was taken by a resident of Rafah. I was last in that part of the town fourteen months ago; in an e-mail, a man who lived there tells me I would not recognize it now. There is repeated terrorization of people in Rafah, as elsewhere in the occupied territories. This is how a human rights organization reported a recent example:

"At 2:30 am on Tuesday 20 January 2004, Israeli occupation forces with tanks and heavy military bulldozers entered the Salah El-Din Gate area of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. After subjecting Palestinian residences in the area to heavy machine gun fire, the bulldozers demolished civilian homes without allowing the residents to remove their belongings. 25 buildings were completely destroyed or rendered uninhabitable, making 600 people homeless."

Yesterday the doctor I had hoped to work with e-mailed me:

"Israeli occupying forces continue making incursions, killing, destroying housing, confiscating land. This morning at 3:00 am, special forces invaded both Albreaj and Alnosyrat camps in the middle of Gaza Strip, with the support of tanks and aircraft. The tanks fired intensively on every thing moving, while Israeli troops fired on people from the roof of a high building." 10 adults and 4 children were killed; of 93 injured, 40 were children.

This picture is of a Jewish Israeli I met when we joined an Israeli demonstration against the settlements and the occupation of the Palestinian territories. The demo was close to where he is standing, in front of a West Jerusalem caf