Scores of buses overflowing with passengers, so tightly packed that bodies are pressed against glass windows, approached the gates of Rafah Terminal along the Gaza-Egypt border Saturday in a desperate bid to exit the Gaza Strip. Luggage and people piled high on top and on trailers dragging behind, some precariously balancing themselves even on metal hitches in between.
Mohamed, 17, clung to the side of one bus by his arms, trying to make his way into Egypt for medical care. One mother grasped the side of a trailer with one arm and her crying little girl with the other as suitcases were rapidly hurled on top of them. 
Buses pushed on -- some carrying as many as 200 people, tires flattened from the weight -- towards lines of preventative security forces trying to control the chaos. Over 7,000 passengers swarmed the terminal frantically trying to escape, but only 2,396 passengers departed and 341 returned, according to EU monitors stationed there. Students, medical patients, and foreign visa holders were permitted to leave. An estimated 30,000 are still waiting to depart, and as of Tuesday the border remained sealed.
"They deal with us like animals," cried 37- year-old Riad Syiam, an electrical engineer trying to reach Abu Dhabi with his wife and three children. Like hundreds of families they came to Gaza to visit relatives and were trapped inside when Israel sealed the border after an Israeli soldier was captured by Hamas 25 June. Rafah (Gaza's only passenger crossing) has been closed by Israel for seven weeks, ostensibly to prevent the soldier from being smuggled outside the Strip as well as to cut off large amounts of cash Hamas leaders have been bringing across the border.
Palestinian officials and EU monitors are working to convince Israel to resume normal operation of the terminal, although according to Salim Abu Saifa, Palestinian Authority (PA) director of border security in Gaza and a chief negotiator with the Israeli side, there is no agreement in sight. Abu Saifa predicts erratic openings until the release of the Israeli soldier.
Shin Bet Chief Yuval Diskin told ministers at the weekly Israeli cabinet meeting Sunday that the Philadelphi Route along the Egyptian border is porous, allowing several tonnes of explosives and weapons to enter Gaza. "Recently, $1.5 million has been smuggled in through Rafah by the Hamas Agriculture Ministry," said Diskin. The intelligence chief charges that Egyptian supervision of the crossing is ineffective, calling for a review of the agreements signed with Egypt last year. 
The Palestinian side securely operated the terminal for eight months, says Abu Saifa, asserting, "the crossing is used [by Israel] for collective punishment and other political gains." President Mahmoud Abbas's office controls the crossings, not the Hamas-led government, in a vain effort to keep them open. On 10 and 11 August, Rafah opened one-way, allowing 4,200 passengers to leave Gaza, according to the EU observer mission. 
Meanwhile Karni -- Gaza's only commercial crossing -- has been sealed shut for four days, as of Monday, creating a shortage of basic commodities and food supplies across Gaza.
Fear and hostility amongst Gazans is brimming over into violent protests throughout Gaza City, as most Palestinians have not received a paycheque in nearly six months. PA employees stormed into banks Saturday morning demanding salaries and on Sunday angry mobs attacked the Legislative Council building. These outbursts come amid a recent string of auto thefts uncommon in the religiously conservative Strip. Palestinians are surviving under the intense pressure of a nearly nine-week-long Israeli incursion into Gaza to purportedly halt the launching of Qassam rockets into Israel and to recover the captured Israeli soldier.
On Saturday 170,000 PA employees received 1,500 shekels, half their monthly salary, from local banks. Funds were transferred directly from the Arab League and select Arab and non-Arab donor nations to the President's Office -- the fruits of Abbas's recent tour soliciting aid. Healthcare sector employees received their salaries directly from the EU, the first channel of the Temporary International Aid Mechanism that has reached Palestinians, presidential spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh told Al-Ahram Weekly.
When PA employees discovered the payment amounted to only half their usual salaries -- and even less for those with outstanding loans in their accounts -- enraged crowds attempted to seize Gaza banks as frightened employees went into hiding. "My wife is expecting and my daughter is sick, I can't make ends meet," said Ossam Akhouli standing outside the Arab Bank to withdraw his salary. Abbas's presidential force and police deployed to secure the banks, as heated protesters tried to enter. 
"The problem is the bank, they owe us our salaries -- this bank is against the Hamas government," shouted 20-year-old Baha Al-Buttish outside Jordan Bank, a member of the presidential security forces. After waiting for two hours under a scorching sun Al-Buttish walked away empty-handed.
"People are under pressure, but they know for sure the Israeli occupation along with the international embargo are responsible for this," Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zhouri told the Weekly, asserting that Hamas's popularity has increased since 25 June. 
Meanwhile, unknown Palestinian militants kidnapped two Fox News crew -- cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, of New Zealand, and American reporter Steve Centanni, 60 -- 14 August in Gaza City. Four militants emerged from a Magnum Jeep, threw the driver of Wiig and Centanni on the ground and swiftly snatched the two journalists from their TV van, recounted witnesses. The journalists are being held by Mumtaz Doghmush, commander of the Salaheddin Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, as a bargaining chip to put pressure on the Israelis to stop shelling houses and halt incursions into the Strip, according to a senior Palestinian intelligence official speaking off record. Hamas knows the location of the journalists, the official said.
Wiig's wife, Anita McNaught, a freelance journalist, made emotional pleas for her husband's release in a televised appeal Friday. It is the first time Palestinian kidnappers have not identified themselves or their demands. Waves of kidnappings, commencing last summer, went largely unpunished under Fatah as the kidnappers' demands were promptly met, arguably encouraging further incidents. "It is a reprehensible act on the part of any faction, and it serves the Israeli occupation," said Abu Zhouri. 
Hamas, elected into office on a campaign promise to restore law and order in Gaza, asserts the perpetrators will be punished. The Fatah bloc of the Palestinian Legislative Council affirmed the Palestinian people have suffered as a result of the kidnappings, which have even further discouraged foreign investment coupled with the inability of exports to leave the Strip. 
Until now, Israel's offensive in Gaza has been overshadowed by its war on Lebanon, leaving Gaza's population in a media blind spot and even more vulnerable to Israeli terrorism. Israeli forces have destroyed three major bridges, along with roads, crops, and infrastructure crushed by rolling Israeli tanks. Gaza's main power station was destroyed 28 June, leaving households, businesses and hospitals across the Strip without electricity and water in the sweltering heat of summer while sanitation systems also collapsed.
Israeli forces have killed over 200 Palestinians, with over 1,000 injured, since 25 June.

(Source: Al Ahram Weekly, 24 - 30 August 2006, Issue No. 809 )

© by Erica Silverman and/or Al Ahram
Reproduced as a link only. This is not a part of the special July War issue of
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