The hell of Palestinian travelers at the gates of Gaza

This late July morning, hundreds of Palestinians huddle under a canopy at the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Sunlight filters through rusty holes in the sheet metal. Men and women vainly wave fans. Old people and sick people stretch out on their heavy luggage. The families have tied colored ribbons to the handles of the suitcases, to recognize them in the crowd. They wait at customs.

Ahead of them, a road winds through the Sinai desert in Egypt. A vacation awaits them in Sharm El-Sheikh, or a doctor in a Cairo hospital, a job somewhere abroad or their emigrant family. But to reach one or the other, they have to go through a small hell of which only Gaza has the secret.

The road from Cairo could take six hours. In reality the trip lasts a day at best, sometimes five. It depends on the goodwill of the Egyptian military. Gazans exchange terrible stories about this passage: humiliations at the hands of customs officers, whole days spent waiting under the sun, without access to latrines, extortion.

The journey costs at least a hundred euros. Some pay more than a thousand for a “VIP” service, provided by a company linked to Egyptian military intelligence. “It is the price of a journey with dignitysighs a notable who implores us not to mention his name. If I land on the Egyptian army’s blacklist, I’m finished: no one can get me out. »

Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers In Gaza, a precarious ceasefire and a persistent political stalemate

Taboo

Of these abuses, Hamas, the Islamist movement in power in Gaza, does not say a word, any more than the local newspapers. On social networks, exasperated travelers allow themselves vague allusions. Rafah is a taboo. Apart from a few thousand admitted to Israel, the Gazans have no other open door to the vast world. They are about 700 to cross it every day this summer. Even during recent Israeli bombings against Islamic Jihad, Rafah remained open. But these travelers remain a drop in the bucket among two million people that Israel has held under blockade, along with Egypt, since Hamas took control of the enclave in 2007.

Read also: “Unlike Hamas, Islamic Jihad has no intention of exercising political power”

Mohammed Arafeh expresses himself without fear. Her son died in Rafah on March 6. Ammar was 16 years old. He suffered from kidney failure from birth. The Palestinian Authority had agreed to pay 80,000 euros for a transplant in Cairo. It wasn’t enough but they would make do with it. The leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinouar, had himself obtained permits for the family from the Egyptian authorities. “He was visiting his father, who was bedridden next to Ammar in Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza,” Mohammad said.

You have 66.72% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.

source site-29