On the morning of the 16th, Palestinian farmers from Beit Ommar village with lands in Saffa close to the illegal Israeli settlement of Bet Ayn, defied a closed military zone order issued by the army in order to work their lands. At around 7am, about a dozen farmers and their families accompanied by a large group of Israeli and international solidarity activists, went to their fields in a valley just below Bet Ayn settlement. Farming in this valley is often dangerous, as the villagers face harassment from settlers and the Israeli military.
The farmers picked grape leaves and used tractors to work the fields for about three hours before settlers started to gather at the top of the hill screaming, “death to all arabs.” Within minutes, a jeep of Israeli soldiers and border police arrived and showed a paper declaring the lands a closed military zone. An Israeli solidarity activist countered the order by showing the commander a copy of a ruling from the Israeli high court that states that it is illegal for the army to repeatedly declare closed military zones and deny farmers access to their lands. The commander ignored the court paper and told the farmers and solidarity activists to leave the lands before returning to his jeep. However, the farmers continued to work their lands in the area for about another hour before finishing with their work without interference from the army.
Palestinian farmers pick grape leaves despite closed military zone orders
Israeli settlers gather at the top of the hill
Commander reads Israeli high court ruling
Sunday, 17th May 2009
On the morning of the 17th, two elderly Palestinian farmers returned to the valley accompanied by four international solidarity activists. In an unusual occurrence, the farmers were able to pick grape leaves for several hours without any threats from settlers or the army even appearing to prevent them from working.
Monday, 18th May 2009
On the morning of the 18th, farmers from Saffa attempted to work their lands at the top of the hill overlooking the valley, closer to the illegal Israeli settlement of Gush Etzion. Shortly after the farmers arrived, three settlers appeared and began to walk towards the Palestinian villagers shouting threats and telling them to leave the area. Fearing for their safety, the farmers returned to the village. However, they returned to the same area in the evening at around 4pm. This time, the farmers went out in a large group with women and children and they were also accompanied by four international solidarity activists. After about an hour of working the lands, two Israeli soldiers came down the hill from the settlement and declared a closed military zone. Yet the soldiers lacked the military order that makes the closed area official. After farmers and internationals told the soldiers that the closed military zone was not legal, the soldiers retreated to the top of the hill and watched the farmers until they finished their work about an hour later.
'At a time when Gazans are under a siege... the coast has become an important psychological tool'
Every day, as the sun sets on the coast of Gaza, people make their way to the coffee shop-lined beaches and the pot-holed streets that run parallel to its coastline.
On the terrace of the famed Al Deira Hotel, patrons jostle for position, sipping sweet Arabic coffee as the sounds of legendary Arab musicians delicately waft through the air, mingling with the aroma of flavoured tobacco.
They all share one aim – to gaze out into the Mediterranean Sea as its turquoise waters transform into blue, then purple and then disappear into the moonlit night.
Another day has passed in Gaza.
For the few minutes where the sun and water meet and the sky glows warm, people here are moved by a deep beauty and for those few minutes, the beaming smiles of children frolicking in the sand, the laughter of friends and the line of fishermen setting out into the horizon suspend Gaza’s seemingly eternal suffering.
It is that time of year again, when temperatures rise and where the coast of Gaza takes on a whole new different meaning.
In this tiny territory caged in by Israel on two sides, north and east, and by Egypt to the south, Gaza’s west coast becomes its gateway to a world of possibilities and a painful reminder of its limited realities.
Gaza’s shoreline is a deceptive one. Its long, white sandy beaches are the ideal location for luxury hotels, trendy cafes, a vibrant nightlife, boutique shops, a palm-tree lined promenade for the health-conscious jogger, the inspired artist seeking to capture its beauty or the local street vendor selling traditional Palestinian handicrafts.
With its year-round, perfect Mediterranean weather, rich history at the crossroads of continents and civilisations and Arab hospitality, Gaza should be a tourist haven and entrepreneur’s dream.
Businesses, corporations and financial towers should be vying for this prime real estate.
Instead, today its 41km-long poorly paved corniche road is marked with potholes. Sections of it have been destroyed by Israeli air raids over the years.
A journey from its northern border to the south can take hours to travel, as you zig-zag through the destroyed stretches of road and the rubble of buildings levelled during Israel’s recent war.
Refugee camps
All along the coastal stretch, crowded and dirty refugee camps edge closer to the water, squeezing every inhabitable inch available.
The drive along the coast is marked by the smell of raw sewage spewing out into the sea at various points. The coast’s most underdeveloped stretches are the scars from where Israel maintained its military outposts and illegal settlements that were a chokehold on the Gaza Strip.
When the Israeli military and settlers pulled out in 2005, they left behind the land and the coast but left Gaza in ruins, caged in and cut off from the outside world.
Since 2006, when Hamas won democratic elections that were recognised by international observers as free and fair, Israel has imposed an increasingly stifling siege on Gaza, restricting everything that comes in and out of the strip.
The vast majority of the 1.5 million Palestinians living here have not been allowed to leave this territory, which is approximately 360sq km in size.
Every facet of life in Gaza has been restricted beyond imagination by Israel, crippling the economy and increasing the psychological pressure on the territory’s people.
Nowhere else in Gaza is the economy more visibly in tatters then along its coast. Its hotels, once buzzing with vacationing Palestinians from the diaspora and the sounds of wedding parties during the summer, are a faint echo of their past.
A pyramid-shaped building on Gaza’s northern shore was supposed to be the Movenpick Hotel. But it, like Gaza, never realised its full potential. Today it stands nearly complete but hollow, scarred by war yet towering over the pristine sands of the sea.
Gazan fishermen are forbidden to travel more than three nautical miles from the coast
For centuries, generations of Gaza’s fishermen set sail from its port cities, earning a livelihood for their families, feeding hundreds of local restaurants and giving the territory a distinct fish flavour to its food.
In Rafah, fishermen annually prepared for the sardine harvest this time of the year. This would have been peak season for them. Today, these fishermen are not allowed to exceed three nautical miles off the coast, far short from what is legally permissible by international law.
When they do try to fish beyond the imposed limits, they are harassed, shot at and detained by the Israeli navy, which patrols Gaza coast ferociously.
Gaza City’s fish market was known for its colourful array of seafood, from crabs to shrimps, sharks to local catches. The fish market at the port was so renowned that it was the preferred market for Israeli Jews, whose own coast dwarfs the length of Gaza’s.
Back then, as it is today, Gaza was under Israeli military control but unlike now, Palestinians and Israelis were allowed to move freely between the two territories.
Gaza’s gateway to the world was through its port. The blueprints had been already drawn up. The Gaza City Port was to be transformed into a modern day commercial trading hub, bringing cargo vessels from Europe, Africa and Asia across the Mediterranean Sea.
But that, too, never materialised. Today, empty vessels and rusted and decrepit dinner-boats encrust the port.
Besides the economic potential – or lack thereof – the coast has also come to symbolise something immeasurable.
At a time when the Palestinian people are under a siege that has prevented them from exercising their most basic rights and freedoms, the Gaza coast has become an important psychological tool.
Escapism
It has become a vehicle to escape their daily struggles.
Anyone who approaches the coast and stares aimlessly out at the horizon is forced to dream. Dream about what, it’s up to them, but they find themselves thinking about what lies beyond their immediate physical limitations.
One simply cannot look at its beautiful waters and not imagine what lies beyond. Your brain begins to race with endless possibilities about the rest of the world. You immediately ask yourself “what if”?
What if Gaza was not under siege? What if I could take a ferry to Cyprus? What if Gaza was free to pursue its economic potential?
A few minutes staring at the coast and one suddenly realises the people are thinking about everything and anything that has nothing to do with Gaza. When people are thinking about Gaza – it is not about Gaza as it is, but what it could or should be.
As a good friend of mine who regularly frequents the Al Deira Hotel terrace put it: “Typical of the melancholy and pride of living in Gaza, its sea not only inspires unending spirit and wonder but it also, often times, instills a sense of sorrow as one sees this great symbol of freedom one is unable to touch.
But Gaza’s sea will continue to inspire freedom no matter the circumstances.”
So it is that, as the sun sets on its shores and the light merges with nightfall, days become weeks and months become years, Gaza’s besieged coast becomes an outlet to nothing but hope for its people.
Interview in Abou Yousef An Najar Hospital in Rafah with Randa Shalouf, a Palestinian woman from the village of Shawka, east of Rafah, injured on the 7th of May by Israeli gunfire in her hand and chest. In the video you can also see the x-ray photos with the bullet.
These are some of the “hassakas” , small fishing boats of poor Palestinian fishermen in Salateen, Gaza Strip, damaged by the Israeli Navy. The first two were stolen in March 2009 and were returned after two months, about a week ago, in this condition. The third one was destroyed in 2006 by Israeli Navy shelling of the beach.
Thursday, 21 May 2009: Five international human rights workers from the ISM-Gaza Strip will be accompanying 10 farmers from Khoza’a as they harvest crops several hundred metres from the Green Line.
In the morning, human rights workers will join Palestinian farmers in Khoza’a village, located east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, to farm land 300-350 meters from the ‘Green Line’.
Farmers and international accompaniers were last fired upon in Letaemat, Gaza by Israeli forces on the 9th of May.
Several farmers have been shot by Israeli forces while farming their lands.
Mohammed al-Buraim is the fourth Palestinian farmer to be shot by Israeli forces in the ‘buffer zone’ in the last months. The three shootings prior to Mohammed’s were: on 18 January, Maher Abu-Rajileh (24) from Khoza’a village, was killed by Israeli soldiers while working on his land 400m from the Green Line; on 20 January, Israeli soldiers shot Waleed al-Astal (42) of Al Qarara (near Khan Younis) in his right foot; and on 27 January, Anwar al-Buraim was shot in the neck and killed.
