5 Days in Gaza Part 1

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Verena est une chercheuse en cancérologie qui travaille à l’université de Nantes. Désolé, je n’ai pas le courage de traduire tout. A son retour, je pourrai lui demander quelque chose de plus court ou faire suivre vos questions si vous voulez

5 Days in Gaza Part 1: GREETINGS FROM GAZA
Thursday, October 18

This is the first part of what I hope is going to become a short series of blogs about what I can safely say is the most extraordinary journey I have done in my life so far.
As a very short summary on how this all came about: my boyfriend, Philippe (who also is a member of IOPS) is a professor of linguistics at the University of Tours, and it that function often receives invitations for conferences. He also happens to work in Generative Grammar, which – for anyone who doesn’t know this – is a linguistic theory that was invented by Noam Chomsky (yes, Noam Chomsky has a day job apart from political activism!). So you can say that Chomsky is more than a household name for us.
So when Phil saw, about ten months ago, a call for an international conference in linguistics to be held at the Islamic university in Gaza (I remember, as I was sitting in the next room) he yelled out for me and said: there is a conference in Gaza, wanna go? At the time, we thought it was something of an absurd thought (I mean, how were we even going to get into Gaza?) which quickly turned into a joke: Oh well, it’s linguistics and it’s in Gaza, so why not invite Chomsky to this? He might like to go. He made it to the West Bank a couple of times but never to Gaza (Israel had denied him entry) so he might be interested.
We told this jokingly to our good friend and Phil’s colleague at the University of Tours, Laurie Tuller, whose reaction, instead of laughing, was: Wait a minute! I have a good friend, a linguist of course, who did her PhD with Noam 30 years ago… maybe I should contact her. And from there on, what had started as a completely impossible thought snowballed into the first ever international conference on applied linguistics held at the University of Gaza. This is how it went:
Laurie contacted her friend Hagit Borer, also a professor of linguistics, born in Israel, and a life-long activist for the Palestinian cause. She was one of the passengers on the Audacity of Hope, the ship that tried to break the blockade of Gaza in 2011 but was held in Greece. Hagit then contacted her old PhD supervisor Noam Chomsky and several other linguist-activists, among them David Heap, a member of the Gaza flotilla in the fall of 2011 who actually got a taste of what life is like for the Palestinian people by landing himself in an Israeli prison for a day after being dragged off the ship.
In the end, we were a group of 7 scientists, 1 artist, plus Noam Chomsky and his friend Assaf Kfoury, a computer scientist, ready to try and get into Gaza and do what should be perfectly normal for any scientist in the world: to freely exchange ideas, thoughts and results of our own daily work with other scientists around the world.

So we set off to Cairo on October 16 and spent a day there getting to know each other (apart from Noam and Assaf, who arrived later and, naturally, didn’t stay in the same hotel with us ). We even found time to visit the pyramids. Every one of my traveling fellows seemed completely unfazed by the thought of leaving for Gaza and having to cross Northern Sinai in a couple of hours, while I grew more nervous by the minute. My admiration for these guys is endless, and without their constant reassurance I probably wouldn’t sit here and write about this right now.

After a night with virtually no sleep due to nerves and suppressive 30 degrees in Cairo even at night, we set off in the morning in a minivan with a driver from Northern Sinai. Our first stop was at the Hotel where Chomsky and Assaf stayed, to meet up with them. As they were driving in their own car, our plan was to drive in a convoy to Rafah and cross the border together.
I got my first glimpse of Noam when we he drove up next to us in his car while we were waiting in the minivan in front of his hotel. And I remember that, when I saw him sitting there in the back of the car, it all suddenly became just too real and I thought: wow, this is really going to happen after all.
We set off together, and you can find a full account of how our trip to the border crossing in Rafah went in a blog written in real time by one of my traveling companions here:
http://music4gaza.wordpress.com/

How she managed to write all this while sitting in the minivan for 12 hours driving through police checkpoints and watching military manoeuvers in the desert  is absolutely beyond my comprehension, since I was either on a high from seeing and talking to Chomsky in person or scared to tears by the soldiers frisking our stuff.
I still want to tell you myself the most exciting parts of the journey, apart, of course, from meeting Chomsky for the first time during our breakfast stop and having a coffee with him in a little café right at the border of the desert.

We were stopped three times by Egyptian soldiers on our trip through Northern Sinai. In retrospect, I think they were rather harmless, curious themselves and eager to practice their English on us. Still, I’ll never forget the moment at the last check point, when one of the soldiers took our passports and told us he’d have to call his general to see if it was safe for us to proceed. It turned out that we chose the day to cross Sinai on which the head of the Egyptian government, Morsi, was visiting his troops in Northern Sinai. So for a time we proceeded with a police escort, one car driving ahead, another small army truck driving behind us. We got a glimpse of 6 young soldiers, not older than 15 by my estimation, with machine guns climbing the back of their truck and putting on their bullet proof vests. I can’t tell you how much safer it makes you feel to have a couple of teenagers protecting you, especially when you don’t wear the bullet proof vest yourself!  But at least we were making quick progress now. We actually saw helicopters in the sky and a line of tanks in the distance in the desert while we were accompanied by our escort. By the time we got dumped at a road side mosque to have a little toilet break (I guess that solves the question of where to pee when in the desert) we had lost over an hour on Chomsky and Assaf, who had passed all of the check points without problem.

We finally met up with them at the border at Rafah, where they had been waiting for us. See Maire’s blog to see how it actually was to finally enter Gaza. Suffice it to say that it took 1 hour of wait in front of the big gate, another hour between two more gates in a room while passports got checked and stamped several times, just to leave Egypt. However, two hours total is really short and everything went well.
We finally met up again with Chomsky and Assaf on the other side, and got on a bus waiting for us there. At this point, I thought we had already entered Gaza. However, after a short trip we stopped in front of a building that turned out to be the actual entry point to Gaza, and I realized then that we still hadn’t made it. When we saw a delegation of official looking men in suits and several men with cameras waiting for us, or rather Chomsky, in front of the building to officially set foot into Gaza, we realized that this would be a more official welcome than what we had expected, but were by no means prepared for what was to come. And while Chomsky left the bus, his calm friendly self completely unfazed by the cameras around, the rest of us had to collect ourselves and try to do damage control with our sweaty clothes and fluttering nerves.
There was a short confusion when Antoine is the first off the bus and the camera men don’t know who they were supposed to film and start zooming in on him. Antoine just smiles and starts shaking hands saying his name, until everyone realizes that they were not here for him and turned to Chomsky instead.

Once off the bus, the cameras were all over us and we were greeted by a delegation of university officials and our contact and organizer, Mosheer, and were let into the building, where our passports were taken, while we were all brought in front of a podium for a first short press conference with two TV cameras, one of which possibly was from Al Jazeera. There was no time to reflect on what was happening and that we were actually now inside Gaza. We were already been put into a room with comfortable chairs and a bottle of mango juice on each little side table, while our passports were being processed. After about 10 min we got our papers back and hopped on the bus again together with Mosheer, our organizer, who was preparing us for what was about to happen.
We were driving towards the city of Gaza at night, which is about a 20 min ride from the border in Rafah, to the hotel we were going to stay. When Mosheer told us he had arranged for us to stay in “a place” we imagined a small hotel or maybe  a guest house belonging to the university. We weren’t prepared to see a 5 star hotel right at the Mediterranean shore, let alone being led through the massive lobby towards our football (soccer that is) field size rooms with a view right out onto the sea. When looking out of our hotel window, you can see a line of white lights ridiculously close to the shore that looks like a gated in swimming area. It turns out that these are lights put up for or by the fishermen to attract fish to swim closer to the shore, because the occupation line that separates the waters belonging to Gaza from those occupied by Israel (a 3 nautic mile zone) is actually so close to the shore. This of course means that there is almost no ground for fishing. Fish don’t usually go into very shallow water, so the only chance to still bring home a good catch is to lure the fish closer to the shore than they would normally go.

We are given 30 min to take a quick shower, then we are once again on the bus and on our way to the next event, this time a “real” press conference and an official dinner in the inner courtyard of the university. We arrive and get seated. After a little commotion because our ”bodyguards” want to discreetly separate the men from the women, and our three men stubbornly mix with us anyway, we were finally sitting at the table. Chomsky of course is being seated at the head table and welcomed specially by the director of the Islamic University of Gaza and several other officials. As I am writing this with a little delay and so many things have happened in between, the many people, employees, professors just blur together in my head, so maybe when I’ve had time to look at all the material we filmed I will remember who it actually was that welcomed us.

Chomsky gave a brief speech about how happy he was to finally see Gaza for himself and had a couple of general remarks on the situation of Palestine (we will get all his speeches out soon!). Then David Heap gave a very moving speech as well. I did mention this before, David is a very well known activist who was on board the ship that tried to breach the siege to Gaza in 2011, and who was arrested on board by Israeli soldiers after they boarded the ship when it was only 55 nautic miles off the shores of Gaza, and spent some time in an Israeli prison as a consequence. This trip was his fourth try to enter Gaza, so naturally he gave a very emotional speech. What I didn’t mention before is that, while we were driving through Northern Sinai, another ship was approaching Gaza to try to break the siege, the Estelle.  Neither I nor my fellow travelers had any idea that there was a possibility the Estelle would reach Gaza waters during our stay in Gaza. David, of course, knew about the ship, as did some others in our group, but the Estelle has been to many ports all over Europe , with stops in Barcelona and the Bretagne, before setting off towards Gaza, and the arrival coinciding with our conference here was pure coincidence. David, of course, talked about the Estelle in his speech, and also about his next project, the Gaza ark, which will try the opposite: to get a ship out of Gaza instead of in, to demonstrate that Gaza will be only free when it is allowed to participate in both, receiving goods as well as exporting them, as is the right for any free country. By now of course you have all heard what happened to the Estelle (at least the bits that were shown on CNN), and you have heard Netanyahu say that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. We’ll see about that.

After the two speeches, we all were rewarded a scarf from the university as a welcome gift. After a lovely dinner with hummus and other delights (no alcohol, mind you, the guys were craving for a beer after 12 hours in the desert) the day was finally at an end and we were being driven back to the hotel. Before falling into an adrenalin-withdrawal coma I remember thinking that, if I feel this drained and tired, how must it be for an 83 year-old man who is suffering from jet lag (although he said to us he doesn’t believe in jet lag!). I didn’t yet know what was to come in the following days, or I wouldn’t have pitied Noam just yet.

I hope to continue soon with day 2 of our visit: the refugee camps and Khan Younis.

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This is part two of my Gaza blog. I am writing this out of a hotel lobby in Cairo. I find I have some holes in my memory, but I hope you’ll find the report interesting anyway.
After a quiet but way too short night, we get up at 7am to start our first day in Gaza. The conference is starting tomorrow, so for today the university has a couple of activities planned for all of us. It is still unreal to me when I come down for breakfast to the huge hotel lobby to see Noam Chomsky sitting there at our table. We have breakfast together rather undisturbed (an exception as you’ll see), and then we are picked up by our driver from the university, and driven to the city of Khan Younis, where we are going to have the opportunity to learn about the problems the city faces because of the siege, and where we will visit a refugee camp.

We are first greeted by our university delegation and led into the city council building where the mayor, some university officials and employees are waiting for us… including, again, a whole bunch of press people. This time I see cameras from ARD, a German news channel. Who’d have thought that the only permanent Western news station in Gaza is from Germany, of all places.
Chomsky, of course, is asked to hold a little speech, followed by speeches from the ex-mayor of Khan Younis and some others, and then we are all awarded our second scarf, this time from the city of Khan Younis. If this continues, we’ll go home with quite a collection. This is followed by two presentations. The first one is a general overview on the situation in Khan Younis, giving some basic information on life in the city under the siege.  I am not going to write about all the things that we were told, mainly because I don’t want to give information without proper back-up info to link to from other sources. But to those who still say that there “is no humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, here are some facts that we have seen with our own eyes and that can easily be verified:
Gaza (I should say, all cities in the Gaza strip) is suffering from electricity blackouts for up to 8 hours a day. Even in the top hotel we’re staying, blackouts are frequent, particularly in the evening. So far, we’ve had every night several occasions where, for some minutes, we were suddenly sitting in the pitch dark in the hotel. Once, lights went out during the day just when I was on the toilet in the university building. Let me tell you, it’s not so easy to find your stuff in the dark and make your way to the exit without major embarrassment. Of course, a five star hotel has generators, so the blackouts aren’t that noticeable here, but the one at the university lasted for hours. This of course includes that the elevators get stuck, so whoever is in there at the time… well, you’d better not be claustrophobic. And of course, normal people living in their houses don’t have the luxuries a five star hotel has, not to mention the refugees in the camps, and, worst of all, the hospital where patients are literally dying on the operating table when this happens during a surgical procedure.

The city of Khan Younis, which is the second largest city in the Gaza strip with 200.000 inhabitants, has a very large refugee community. Since 1948 they have taken up 70.000 refugees that have lost their houses and possessions in the various attacks by Israel. Apart from crowded housing and inhumane living conditions (we saw this with our own eyes, the cramped and run-down buildings and streets are just unimaginable), the people suffer from a complete breakdown of the economy.  In that respect, the siege imposed by Israel has been very successful. The complete blockade of any trading of goods, import or export, has paralyzed society. When you go to the market, you can see fruits and vegetables and other goods to buy, but food is just internal trading and doesn’t create any jobs. On top of this, Khan Younis suffers from an environmental disaster due to water supply and sewage system problems.

We heard from a civil engineer working on the water supply systems, telling us that from 1979 to 1994, Khan Younis had no proper infrastructure (neither sanitation nor water circulation) which led to serious contamination of the remaining aquifers (the ones not appropriated by Israel), which of course leaves the citizens with contaminated drinking water, leading to all kinds of serious water born diseases and health problems.  In 2000, a Japanese project was supposed to start building a proper water network and sewage system; however, because of the second Intifada the project fell through, and by now, especially since the beginning of the siege in 2007, things have become very complicated indeed.

90,000 cubic meters of waste water go directly into the sea, some of it running over fields of crop, contaminating fishing grounds and food grown on fields alike. This is the food that you see being traded at the market. You can imagine that this doesn’t really help public health. It is only fitting that just recently the Israeli military was forced to release a document entitled Food Consumption in the Gaza Strip, showing that in order to enforce its closure on the Gaza Strip it calculated how many calories residents needed on a daily basis in order to avoid malnutrition (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2012/1018/1224325411602.html).
After the presentations, the press zeroes in on Chomsky and he has to give more interviews. Even I get interviewed by the ARD, dammit, I am making a complete fool out of myself, since I am asked to answer in German the questions that are being asked in English to me, and somehow my brain seems incapable of processing the information. At some point, I can’t even think of the German word for siege and begin to stutter. I really hope that this is never going to find its way on German TV, but given the lack of media interest for the Palestinian cause, I very much doubt it will.

We can see for ourselves the abysmal living conditions in the refugee camp later on our drive through the camp and continue to the main hospital of Khan Younis. There, we visit the emergency room and can see firsthand the conditions under which these courageous doctors have to work. We also talk to the director of the clinic, who gives a very moving statement about the work conditions of the hospital that will find its way on the internet soon. Suffice it to say that they lack even the most basic drugs, such as aspirin or paracetamol or even gauze, let alone costly drugs to treat serious or chronic illnesses like cancer or diabetes, and suffer constantly from the before mentioned power blackouts.

We then proceed to have lunch at a seaside restaurant. There, we enjoy the food and pleasant sea breeze, until I notice a ship very close to the shore. We took a photo zooming in on the ship, and yes, it clearly is a war vessel cruising up and down the cost. David has been on the phone constantly since the morning because of the arrival of the Estelle, the ship that is trying to break the siege to Gaza. At lunch, we hear that they are about 45 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza somewhere south coming from Egypt. The last vessel, on which David was a passenger, was boarded 55 nautical miles off the coast, so, so far so good. However, it occurs to me that the war vessel I can see from my window at lunch is on its way south to “greet” the Estelle.  But no, I am told that this is perfectly normal, there are always – at any given time – several war ships patrolling up and down the coast so close to the shore that they are visible even without a camera zoom.

As a side note, I also find time to have a little chat with Noam. We joke around (seriously) and exchange stories about his daughter in Nicaragua and my brother in Bolivia, and Western vs. the Latin American dress code. This of course lets me forget the war vessels at once, I’m sorry to say. But at least it also serves the purpose of fending several people off, who won’t even allow the time for Chomsky to have a little after-lunch break. The man is 83 people! If I almost fell asleep over lunch from exhaustion, how must he feel?

Back at the hotel, we are allowed a 30 min break (wow!) before we are off to the next function. Since David is busy on the phone with people on the Estelle, and some of us are feeling tired or sick from a stomach bug going round that one of us had dragged in on a rotten sandwich from Heathrow airport (Palestinian food is perfectly fine to eat, if you ask me, it’s the Brits that are the problem), we are a rather reduced group consisting of only Noam Chomsky, Assaf, Laurie, Phil and me (yes, “me” not “I”, we’re linguists here) when we set out for our next item on the agenda. Mosheer, our organizer, had told us that it will be an informal event with graduate students, only a couple of questions for all of us, a personal exchange with students.

When we arrive, we realize that this is the understatement of the year. We are led into an open air space in the closed of garden of a university building (or something like that), where people (mostly men in formal suits) are sitting at round tables with white formal table cloth waiting for us to be seated at the head table with – wait for it – 4 microphones already waiting in front of Chomsky’s seat and countless cameras pointed at him. What was supposed to be an informal exchange has suddenly turned into a formal 2 hour speech by Chomsky about the Arab spring and the situation in Palestine and an interesting question and answer session. I am exhausted just listening and following the session, Laurie is busy handing Chomsky glasses of water, since he is slowly losing what’s left of his voice. How he does it, I don’t know.

Back to hotel, we have been on our feet since 7 am with no break, and it is now past 18h and Chomsky has been speaking for hours. We are told by Mosheer that we are not needed for the next event, except for Noam, so we go up to our rooms for an hour or so, then file downstairs to look for some food. When I pass by the first floor of the hotel, I see a meeting room packed full of young people and decide to take a look. Chomsky is still in there, busy answering questions from the audience, very lively young people. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPBsgpCvODE)

The room is hopelessly overcrowded, very hot, and there’s almost no oxygen left. I decide to get Hagit, who knows Noam best, and put an end to this and get him out of the room alive. However, as soon as the question and answer session is finally at an end, people just run up to the table, trying to get a picture with Chomsky or ask more questions. At this point we hear Noam say that he can’t go on anymore and gives us a desperate look. Hagit and I have to literally throw ourselves into the masses and half drag the man out of the room, making enemies left and right for refusing to let more people approach him, only to learn on our way to the elevator that there was another event planned for Chomsky tonight!! It is now past 20h30, and Chomsky himself repeatedly says that he’s had enough. Cancelling the dinner again doesn’t make us any friends, but luckily, the event can be rescheduled for the next evening. When we finally make it into the elevator amidst all this commotion, one of the photographers somehow slips through and gets with the three of us inside the elevator, where he starts taking photos of Chomsky almost pushing the camera into his face. Honestly, you have to have been there to believe it.
We manage to arrange a private dinner late that night (I think we had finally some food at 22h15 or so) away from the hotel lobby, where students are still lingering a bit and fall to bed around midnight, completely exhausted from the impressions of the day, both of life in Gaza and life around the world’s leading intellectual.

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Linguistic conference and arrival of the Estelle
Saturday, October 20

Our conference on linguistics at the Islamic University of Gaza starts today, Saturday, the first day of the week. We have an early breakfast and are once more taken to the university by Muneer, our nice driver from the university.

When we get off the bus at the university, we are again being greeted by a huge crowd of cameras and officials, all of whom wanting to get their faces on camera with Noam. This has become our new normal by now. We are all filmed getting off the bus behind Chomsky and walking up to the university building behind him, and a clip of this actually lands us on democracy now, which, as far as we can see, is the only TV station that will get a bit of visibility reporting Chomsky’s visit to Gaza. You can see it further down.
On our way to the auditorium Chomsky is stopped to give interviews and shake hands left and right, and then we finally reach the main auditorium, where we are seated in the first row. Noam is led off to the stage, from where he will give his key note lecture after, guess what, more speeches by the dean of the university, the head of the department and Mosheer, our organizer, who will also have to give a lecture the following day. There are cameras and press in the room everywhere, but at this point, really, who cares. David is busy on the phone, still talking to the people on the Estelle. The boat has waited out the night on sea to avoid being boarded by the Israelis at night, and is setting course once again on Gaza. However, things are starting to look bad when David receives an SMS that the passengers of the Estelle can see several vessels approaching. David says that this is normal, and that we should expect the connection to be cut very soon, and then the boat will go radio silent until will hear from the Israeli sources what has happened.

We all take out our computers, trying to get internet connection inside the auditorium, since this is the first moment we have since our arrival where we can sit down somewhere undisturbed and try and connect with friends or family. I am looking around in the auditorium and am greeted by many smiling faces of students who are looking at us curiously. It is clear that they don’t get many foreign researchers (not to mention Chomsky) to come, and so they are eager to talk to us. This is the Islamic University, so all women are required to wear a uniform consisting of a head scarf and a long dark coat, and women and men are sitting on separate sides of the auditorium. There are however several other universities in Gaza that are secular, where the dress code is more relaxed. Normally, there are two separate campuses, one for women, one for men, and the classes have to be taught twice, once on each side. The fact that we women, although we’re wearing long sleeves and rather baggy clothes so as to not offend anyone, are not covering our hair makes us stick out like a sore thumb, but I don’t see one critical look or raised eyebrow. On the contrary, boys and girls alike (men and women I should say) descend on us, trying to make our acquaintance and speak with us in English. And by the way, their English is, across the board, simply excellent!

After the introductory speeches, Chomsky gives an excellent talk on linguistics with a broad overview on the nature of language. Somehow, Laurie ends up on stage again next to Chomsky, she has become his official translator and aid, and for us it is of course a welcome sight to have at least one token woman breaking the line of male experts and representatives up there.  I am not a linguist myself (except maybe by contamination from living with one) and have done only some very minor statistical work on one of the papers so that I could get an official invitation from the university to come to Gaza.  The talk is very interesting, and Mosheer does an incredible job translating simultaneously; however, about 45 min into the talk, there is a commotion up on stage and Noam suddenly announces that apparently he was supposed to talk about the Arab Spring and Palestine this morning, and not linguistics. There is a second seminar planned with Chomsky tomorrow, so there must have been a mix-up in the schedule and nobody had informed him that his first talk was supposed to be the political one, and not the one on linguistics, which also explains why there is so much press here.

So the conference schedule gets stretched further, when an additional hour or so is now dedicated to the Arab spring etc. No notes or slides involved, Chomsky is a living encyclopedia, but this of course should surprise no one. We will try to get all of his talks out, or create a link to them; I don’t want to go into details here. The talk was of course interesting, as was the question and answer session afterwards.
Halfway through the talk, David receives one last SMS informing him that the Israeli soldiers are now preparing to board the ship, and that this would be the last message for a while. We are very worried and hope that the boarding will be without violence this time. David has arranged for a press conference in the port of Gaza at 13h. After Chomsky’s talk, it is already past 11h and the “real” conference begins. Since sessions are starting and some of us don’t have to present in the morning and want to participate in the press conference for the Estelle, we accompany Noam to a room at the university where we get fed with some delicious cake and coffee. We spend almost two precious hours in this room, enough time to take turns and have a private chat with Noam. I pick his brain on the upcoming US elections (scary, people, scary), evolution and the religious right (“the US stands alone in its denial of evolution”, although he admits it would be interesting to do a survey on this in Islamic countries, apparently this hasn’t been done recently), Vietnam, East Timor and the political activities of young Germans (of which I know nothing, since I live in France… oh well). Not that we are left alone, Chomsky has to give another interview during this time, I forgot with whom, it all just blurs together. But he was, as usual, incredibly engaged, nice and patient.

At 13h, we all drive down to the port of Gaza, where Noam and David hold the press conference.  I include links to some articles and videos, but by now it is all over the net (obviously NOT in the main stream media).

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/22/headlines/chomsky_gaza_perseverance_inspiring_ship_attack_compounds_israels_diminishing_legitimacy
http://www.alresalah.ps/en/index.php?act=post&id=1276
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/canadianboattogaza/2012/10/noam-chomsky-siege-gaza-criminal-act-has-no-justification
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/22/268173/israels-attack-on-peace-boat/
Most importantly, this is a video that we took in our hotel lobby. It is from the following day, but I include it here, since it fits better with the topic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M36iarLHka0
I also put a link to David’s next project, the Gaza Arc, breaking the siege from the inside, since Palestinians will only be free when they have achieved freedom of movement and the right to both, import and export goods.
http://www.gazaark.org/2012/10/23/video-chomsky-on-the-estelle/

After about 2 hours in the glaring sun, I am close to heat stroke, but Noam and David are still standing. We now drive back to the university, where Chomsky is being lead off, I forgot where, but no doubt to give more interviews. I settle down in the conference room and listen to the afternoon session, where Laurie, Phil and Maire give linguistic talks, the reason why we are here. The presentations are interesting, even though Phil talks way over his time, so that when it’s finally done, it is already time for the “cultural event” that has been planned by students for us. I basically keep my seat while the stage is being prepared and the huge auditorium fills once more with students. Some of my colleagues (David has by now coined a new term for us: we call ourselves the Gaza 8, or G8 for short) join me from the other sessions and soon we are surrounded by students who ask us for our autographs (seriously, and yes I know, ridiculous), but more importantly, our facebook addresses, so that we can connect and stay in touch.
Noam Chomsky arrives and is seated in the first row, and then the cultural event starts with traditional dances, a short play on life in Gaza under the blackouts and two poems being read by students. All in English for our sakes, and again, excellent quality. I wish students in France had that level of English. One of the poems is very poetic; the other one is incredibly powerful. We filmed it all, but it is too big to upload, I’ll link to it later. It is incredible to listen to all this and it makes us realize what a privilege it is for us in the West to be able to choose to be apolitical, if we want to. To have the luxury of only concentrating on ones job or studies and live a life in security. Here, everyone is political and aware, and everyone can express fear and emotions that we have only heard about. Yet, the atmosphere is incredibly joyful. How people have managed to stay so positive, open and full of energy under these circumstances deeply impresses us all.

It must be around 21h when we finally arrive in the hotel to have dinner. Except for Chomsky of course, who is attending the “make-up” dinner that had to be canceled the day before. I’m too tired to eat much anyway, but it is again midnight before we are finally in our rooms.

This night, I am standing at the hotel window overlooking the sea, when I realize that the faint sounds I am hearing (and I think I had heard them the night before, too, but was too tired to care) are actually shots from a machine gun. And they are not very far away, either.  And there is something else, too, a more constant noise that sounds like a helicopter or a drone. Since Palestine has no civil airline or planes, this cannot be good. I get really scared for a while, unable to turn away from the window for fear that the shots might be coming closer. The line of lights that the fishermen have put up to attract fish blink in the night and suddenly look scary, too, because I start hallucinating that they are coming closer as well. I am paralyzed for about 20 min, but when I realize that the shots are not coming closer after all and I’ll just have to live with it, I go to bed anyway and manage to sleep. Welcome to Palestine.

[digger]

Center for families of detainees
Sunday October 21

This is our fourth day in Gaza and the second day of the linguistics conference. The day starts with what has become my new favorite ritual: breakfast with Chomsky. It’s one of the few moments we have of peace and quiet (if you don’t mind the occasional gunfire in the distance), without cameras all around in that wonderful hotel lobby. Today we have time for a little small talk until Antoine comes to our table and tells us that there are two girls sitting at a table nearby who’d like to speak to Noam. They have been sitting there quietly, in that lobby, since six o’clock in the morning!  They look quite serious and not at all like “groupies” who just want an autograph from the famous intellectual, and of course, always his generous self, Chomsky agrees to talk to them. We finish our breakfast and then, on his way back to his room Noam sits down at their table and talks to them for a good 15 min.

We then drive to the university and attend the morning sessions there. Since Chomsky is not attending any of our sessions, we spend a quiet morning away from the cameras, which almost feels weird by now. Mosheer, our organizer, gives his talk. The man must be just as exhausted as, if not more than us since he has been organizing this for months and is responsible for the smooth running of the conference, the simultaneous translation of some of Chomsky’s speeches and on top of that his own talk. While we stay to attend all morning talks, Noam is off to yet another meeting: after having met with a number of civil society leaders and university officials, he is now going to meet Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Later that day when we’re all sitting on the bus, I ask him whether he doesn’t fear at least some repercussions back in the U.S. because of this, to which he just says “Oh, no, by now I have already sunk so low” [in the eyes of the U.S. government, that is].

After the morning sessions, we have lunch at the university. At first, one of the faculty staff, a very bright young woman with – I know I’m repeating myself, but this has somehow really impressed me, particularly after living in France – excellent English accompanies us to the university cafeteria, where we would have gladly stayed to eat. The cafeteria staff is clearly unprepared for us showing up like this, but they manage to put food in front of us within 3 minutes. However, the university officials have other plans for us, as they had a special room prepared for our lunch. We would have liked to stay in the cafeteria in the midst of university life, but I guess they feared that this wasn’t “nice” enough for us. Or maybe there might also have been an issue with us being on the male campus, and 5 women with uncovered hair in the cafeteria is too much of a distraction, who knows. This is all speculation on my part, all I know is that we end up in that room that was prepared for us and have an excellent lunch, which probably came out of the university cafeteria anyway, since the packaging looks similar. A little side note on food here: Palestinian food is delicious, and for anyone who likes hummus, between the eight of us (the G8) we can compare hummus from several countries (Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Turkey and even Israel) and the decision is unanimous: Palestinian hummus is the best.

After lunch we meet up with Chomsky again and go to a center that takes care of families that have one or several family members detained in Israeli prisons. When we arrive, everything has been set up as usual: a head table for Chomsky and some officials with microphones and cameras for the press, a side table for us, and then, on the other side opposite us, another table with some women already seated, some of them holding large pictures of their imprisoned sons, one has two smaller frames with pictures of two young men in front of them.



We are asked to sit down, and of course, the whole event starts with speeches by the officials who have invited us, followed by a short speech by Chomsky. Then we get to see a short movie that is actually very disturbing. It shows how a young boy, maybe 10 to 12 years old, is chased by Israeli soldiers, grabbed and finally shoved into a car, while the mother and other family members are begging the soldiers not to take him. It just makes you think what such a kid could have possibly done to be arrested by these soldiers. What kind of risk does he represent? Of course, we have all heard stories like this (or so I assume, from the rare times that such things are reported in the Western press). But still, seeing it is different. A young women starts to translate what we see in the movie, but it is so obvious that really, no words are needed.  However, we are here to hear the testimonials of the women who are sitting here and came to tell us about their sons, so when one of the older women holding one of the large posters gets up and comes to the front, we are all ears.
The women introduces herself and then tells us about her son, who has been imprisoned for 6 years now, and she has been allowed to visit him once, only once, during all this time. This time, a university official who is here with us translates, not the young women from before. The testimonial is not very long, and then another woman gets up, a younger one this time, and tells us about her husband. He has been in jail for seven years now, and when he was arrested, the woman was pregnant with their son. By now, the son is in school and has never seen his father, he only knows him from the pictures that the woman can show him. Again, this testimonial was quite short, and when she is done, the university officials again start talking and introduce two (male) intellectuals to us who are now invited to speak. I guess, at this point we are all so used to speeches that we don’t really care, but when the speeches end we understand that this was supposed to be it, and that we are now supposed to go into a room for an exhibition. I think we all find this surprising, since we all thought that we would have the chance to actually speak to the families of the prisoners person to person, and not via some officials making speeches, and the women themselves seem to feel the same way. One of them, the woman that had the two smaller frames in front of her, demonstratively puts away the pictures and insists on coming to the front to speak.

When she starts, we can see and hear from the tone of her voice that she is trying to control herself; she is clearly angry (who wouldn’t be, with two sons in jail??). A university official translates, and at the same time tries to assure us that the woman doesn’t mean to offend; but really, what she has to say is only too right. She asks us why we are here and what, really, we are going to be able to do for her and her companions that will make a change and that will help her and the prisoners? She has every right to ask this, we all think, and none of us is offended by what she says, on the contrary. Somehow she is rattling us into reacting; we have been way too silent, following protocol and order, which under other circumstances might have been fine. Speeches are ok, and it is understandable that a visit by Chomsky is so important to the people here that, of course, there will be speeches and ceremonies and all kinds of official events. But in a setting like this, where women are supposed to talk about their personal grief and horror, how must it feel to them to be confronted with a delegation of Westerners staring at them and politely listening to speeches? I feel very guilty at this moment for not having tried to interact more. Others do, too, since one of us just grabs the microphone and starts speaking directly to the women.

What happens now is what David later comments with “women solidarity, just brilliant!” The mike goes round and we all say that we are here for them and not for the speeches. Hagit is the first one breaking the ice, and she is also the one insisting that, from now on, the young women from before should translate, woman to woman, with no official between us. Maire says that we want to collect the names of all their sons or family members in jail, because it is always the names of the Israeli soldiers that we hear reported on the news. Never the ones of Palestinian prisoners. They go anonymous. Nobody cares. I add that we want their stories, too; not just names, as we want to report their stories here as detailed as we can. We want to personalize this horror, since it is the only way to get attention. But Stephanie gives the most emotional speech of all, saying that we have not come here for political gains or making ourselves important, but to meet those who are most affected by the situation in Palestine. That we want to hear all their stories, not only the three short testimonials so far, that we want details, that what we can do is get their stories out here, in the West, for what it’s worth, but that the more details we are given the better we can do our job. She has tears running down her cheeks while she is saying this, and it is affecting all of us, including the women opposite us. The men, somehow, are completely out of the picture, pushed aside by the avalanche of female emotions, although we later learn from the men in our group that they didn’t seem to be too angry with us. We might have broken protocol, but at least one of the officials was apparently smiling.

For the mothers and wives of the prisoners, this outburst was clearly a relief, and I think they felt for the first time that we are sincere. They now start talking, one by one, even the ones that have given their testimonials before, with the young women translating. We finally hear details, names and stories of what life is like for these women who are not able to see their sons, for years, who are not allowed to bring anything inside the prison, no food, no clothes, no medication. Who have their sons suffering from illness that goes untreated in prison. This takes longer than all the speeches and testimonials before, and of course, we now have completely destroyed the schedule of the day. We end by having them promise to us to send us all their stories by email, so we can report about this later.

While the women are still telling us their stories, the woman who had started it all sits in her place and smiles at us, and then slowly takes out again the two pictures of her sons and puts them up in front of her once more. When we are done, she comes over to us and gives all of us a long long hug (not the men, of course, which reminds us of the cultural barrier that exists, but our men do a very good job staying in the background). By now, we have upset the schedule and the officials who try to get us in the next room with an exhibition on the prisons and the conditions in prison. But frankly, only after this encounter does it make sense to look at the exhibition. It is now even more impressive to see the amount of prisons around the Gaza strip. It’s mindboggling. Heartbreaking.
After this incredible encounter, we drive back to the university, where we arrive in the middle of the afternoon session. For some reason, I find myself alone with Chomsky in the conference room and we listen to two more talks, while chatting about the experience ("very interesting") and joking around about other things (yes, even the great Chomsky doesn’t always behave in class).
Then it is time for Chomsky to receive his honorary doctorate from the Islamic University for his "efforts for truth and freedom in Palestine”. He is led away while we, the G8, regroup in the audience and end up in the 5th row right in front of the stage. The curtains are drawn so we cannot see what is going on behind. The auditorium starts filling up again with students and university employees who all want to participate in the ceremony. When the curtain finally opens, we are not prepared for the scene unfolding before us: Noam is sitting in the middle of the stage, flanked on both sides by two university officials, all three of them dressed in the ceremonial robe of the university. This view is so unexpected and funny that we all break out in huge smiles, trying not to laugh out loud. The problem is that we are sitting directly in Noam’s line of view, and we catch his eye, which makes him smile. At this point, we just can’t hold it in no longer and all start giggling and waving at him. Poor Noam, I think we made him suffer quite a bit, he clearly tries not to laugh out loud, but we see his shoulders shake from giggling. What a sight, I’ll never forget it.
Now, of course, we listen to more speeches in Chomsky’s honor, and one by him saying that he has received quite a collection of honorary doctorates (no kidding) but that this one really has a special meaning for him. After this, there is the closing ceremony of the conference (guess what, speeches!!) and then we go back to the hotel where we have about 30 minutes to change, and then go to our last official item on the program: the conference dinner and the awarding of the certificate of participation!

The dinner is at another sea side restaurant, in a very beautiful setting, and when we arrive everybody is already there waiting for us. When we see the podium on one side, Chomsky says: “oh good, more speeches.” But luckily there really are none, just nice dinner with fantastic hummus one last time, and the awarding of the conference certificate for all participants. It occurs to us then that maybe it is on us this time to make a speech and thank the organizers and everybody here for their efforts, their incredible welcome, their friendliness and just in general for the overwhelming experience we’ve had here. Hagit is the one speaking for all of us. When she’s done, David gets up and says that we have forgotten to mention the most important thing. And that is that Hagit is in heaven, because she loves hummus so much, and the best can be found in Palestine, as everybody agrees.  Loud cheers, and the conference is finally over. Well, almost, because Noam is taken off to a corner somewhere to give an interview and receive a gift, while we all gather in a corner and have a couple of fotos taken by one of the photographers here. At some point, he looks at Phil and starts giggling, pointing at him and saying: Muammar Gaddafi. Turns out he thinks that Phil looks like Gaddafi’s son. Good hummus and a sense of humor… really, I love these people!
We arrive late in the hotel, and this night, we are hearing the loudest shots and helicopter or drone noise yet. I hear a couple of explosions that sound really close, and I stand by the window for a time just to make sure that the lights you can see by the sea are not coming closer. It’s very scary, but at some point I decide to put some ear plugs in and just go to sleep.

[digger]

Just another day in Gaza
Monday October 22


This is our last day in Gaza, and the only one with no official appointments on the agenda. Noam Chomsky and Assaf have left in the morning and are on their way back to Cairo, where Chomsky has – today, after at least 10 if not 12 hours of border procedures and driving through Northern Sinai and crazy Cairo – a whole bunch of interviews lined up. Yesterday, there was talk of 12 interviews, but I think his schedule had to be reduced considerably, or else he would have to talk into the next morning. The remaining eight of us, the Gaza 8 (or G8), are planning to finally see something of “real” life in the Gaza strip and have arranged a trip to downtown Gaza with friends of David’s, Maya and Hani, who are supposed to pick us up in the hotel. We have heard loud gun shots all night long for a second consecutive night, but now while sitting at breakfast we hear shots of machine guns really close and helicopters in the air. Not for the first time the adrenalin is shooting into my bloodstream; it really is quite something to hear all this gunfire from so close, and again I am amazed by how cool everyone else appears. When I ask if anybody else is scared, everybody just shakes their heads. Why am I such a sissy then? Hagit tells me that I shouldn’t worry (what do you mean, not worry?) my reaction is perfectly normal. She reminds me that she grew up in Israel and has seen and heard much worse. Basically, until the bombs don’t drop in the block next to you, there’s nothing to worry about. I can only recommend this trip to everyone; it is a very important learning experience just to live through one day of what is normal life for all Palestinians.


While still sitting at breakfast, the first emails arrive. They are from activist friends of David who live in Gaza and read as follows:
“I went to Beit Hanoun this morning to accompany the farmers, there was an Israeli airstrike and a person died, we went to the hospital where i saw the body of the martyr, he was part of the Palestinian resistence, then we went to the place hit by a missile. Drones were flying continuously, I knew about Israeli incursion also in east of Jabalia. In this moment there is still some shooting in east Beit Hanoun, the situation is not good.
Totally, this morning, two israeli airstrikes killed two men in Beit Hanoun and in Beit Lahia, and injured 4.
In Beit Hanoun the heavy fire by Israeli warplanes and tanks prevented the students to go to the schools, 3 schools were evacuated

And another one:

“Four fishermen were arrested this morning by the Israeli navy while they were fishing in Gaza waters (2 miles offshore) [remember, the actual zone is 3 nautical miles, so they actually broke into Gaza waters!]
They are now in Ashdod and the soldiers confiscated their boat

So basically, the machine-gun fire we heard overnight and in the morning is what passes for "normal" terrorizing of fishing boats. Great. I’m really nervous now. And now, on top of this, rumors start pouring in that the border in Rafah will be closed tomorrow, the day we are supposed to leave, for the whole day. Chomsky and Assaf have just managed to sneak out in time, but even if we would leave right now (it is mid-morning) we would risk having to cross the Sinai after dark (you have to count three hours just to cross the border from Palestine to Egypt), which is not a good idea. So apparently we have missed our window of opportunity already. Great, I feel that we’re stuck here now.


At first we think that the closing of the border is due to the air strikes, and this is of course a very worrying thought, but it turns out that the reason why the border will be closed tomorrow is the surprise visit of the Emir of Qatar! Apparently, this is the first state visit for the Palestinians from the leader of another country in I don’t know how many years, or ever. Super. We all start joking that maybe the King can personally get us out of Rafah with him when he leaves tomorrow afternoon, but since we’ve lost Chomsky, we are now down to being normal humans again and won’t be able to approach emirs or kings anymore.


There is nothing to be done, the info we are getting are so conflicting that we decide to leave the hotel and go to downtown Gaza anyway. Might as well enjoy our stay here while it’s lasting. We leave in two cars with two drivers hired for the day and drive for about 20 min to the downtown area. Just driving through the streets of Gaza is amazing. The bustle, the life! We see donkey carts (one of the main transport media here in Gaza) cars of course, school girls in uniform and just life, life, life.

Our first stop is to visit the archeological museum of Gaza, a wonderful very old palace building from the mameluk period. After a tour (and taking some pictures with a group of school girls who insist on being on a foto with us) we set off on foot through the streets of Gaza.



Our last stop is a cemetery where you can find the graves of British and Jewish soldiers amongst others. It’s a very peaceful place, but instead of enjoying the peace and quiet away from the bustle and noise of the city and learning about the history of the place, I get totally distracted once again by the sound of warplanes or helicopters above our heads.

We have an interesting conversation about this with Hani, who of course has to smile about my little anxiety attack. Basically he says that he is not nervous because he has learned to distinguish the sounds a plane makes when it is about to attack and when it is just passing above, and that he can tell the make and year of any warplane or drone just by its sound. So, nothing to worry about. He also tells us that for him, the problem is when he is away from Gaza: since Palestine does not have a civil airline, every plane you hear by definition is a warplane. So when he is away from home, every time he hears a plane he assumes that something unpleasant is about to happen. Maya, his wife who is a Westerner and moved here just 7 months ago, is not yet used to this either and says that her admiration for the Palestinian people and their resilience to live under these circumstances is just endless. So is mine.

Hani in general is a trough of information. We learn so many things from him that day that this blog would continue forever if I would write it all down. Here’s just one fact: The people in Gaza could not survive without the tunnels beneath the borders with Egypt. I’ve already linked to an article that describes how Israel was forced to publish a document explaining that, as of 2008, Israel has calculated the amount of calories needed for Gazans to survive, just to survive, and this is the amount of food that they will let in through the blockade. So the tunnels really are the life-line for everything to the people of Gaza, not only food, but also medication, even simple drugs such as aspirin or paracetamol or gauze for wounds. There are 2500 tunnels in total, some small, some big enough to get cars and trucks through. Gazans are not allowed to import SUVs or 4-wheel drives, because they could be used by the resistance (yes, because a normal car couldn’t??), so all of those you see in Gaza (and there are many) have come through the tunnels.


The cemetery was our last item on the “sightseeing” agenda for today, and we’re now on our way to a concert organized for our artist, Antoine, by the BDS (this stands for boycott divestment and sanctions, a campaign of Palestinian activist groups to boycott cultural economical goods from Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights). It’s being held at a music school, and in order to get there we have to drive through the part of Gaza that was under attack during the Cast Lead massacre (what’s called the “War on Gaza” in 2008, I’ve learned since that one shouldn’t use the word war, because it implies that it was a two-sided conflict, when clearly it wasn’t). I wish I could give you an impression of how it feels to see the bullet holes and worse, the big gap in a street sign made by a missile, in this densely populated area.

The concert is a total success, Antoine, who is mainly a composer of film music, plays a couple of his favorite pieces and sings a Billy Bragg song, and then a band plays Palestinian folk songs. The place just rocks, and for the first time we also see several women without their head scarves, and men and women are seated mixed among each other.

After this, we have yet another appointment (rest is not something easily to be had in Gaza) and we go on to a meeting with several non-governmental activist groups, amongst them the director of PNGO (http://www.pngo.net/), a non-governmental network of Palestinian organizations, and have a very lively and interesting discussion on our activist work and the possibilities of future collaborations.

When we finally arrive in our hotel, it is still not clear whether we can pass the border in Rafah tomorrow and which side (Egypt or Palestine) is responsible for the closing. There’s nothing to be learned today, so we all go off to bed. When in our hotel room, I can hear the most violent gun shots and helicopter or drone noise somewhere off the shore so far, but decide that I just can’t take it anymore and need some sleep anyway. So I plug my ears and go to sleep, knowing that whoever is out there still is not going to pass a quiet night in a hotel bed like me. I guess this shows that you can get used to everything, even the worst of oppression, if you are subjected to it long enough.

[digger]

4 killed, 9 wounded, countless terrified

This is a report on the Isreali attacks in the Gaza strip. Keep in mind that the report does not include October 24th, the day of the airstrikes. I still don't have any final report on the casualties that day...

Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip:

Oct 19

In the context of shooting incidents, on 19 October 2012, Israeli forces positioned along the border fence, east of al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, opened fire at a group of volunteers from the Local Initiative and a number of Popular Resistance activists. The volunteers and activists were on farming land belonging to the al-Tartouri family, supporting the family as they attempted to harvest olives. As a result, the volunteers and residents of the area were terrified and fled fearing for their lives.

In the context of targeting fishermen, on 19 October 2012, Israeli gunboats stationed off al-Waha resort, northwest of Beit Lahia in the north of the Gaza Strip, opened fire sporadically at Palestinian fishing boats. As a result, fishermen were terrified and fled fearing for their lives.

Oct20
On 20 October 2012, Israeli forces again opened fire on fishermen.

Oct 22
On 22 October 2012, Israeli forces again opened fire on fishermen.

On 22 October 2012, Israeli navy forces abducted 4 fishermen 2 kilometers off al-Sudaniya shore, north of Gaza City. Additionally, their fishing boat was confiscated.

On 22 October 2012, Israeli forces stationed inside watchtowers at the border fence, north of the Agriculture School, north of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, opened fire at the farming lands and houses adjacent to the border. Neither casualties nor damage to property were reported.

In the Gaza Strip, on 22 October 2012, Israeli forces killed 1 Palestinian man and wounded 2 others, when an Israeli warplane launched a missile on a group of members of the al-Qassam Brigades, military wing of the Hamas movement. The group was on Qleibo Hill, east of Sheikh Zayed city, south of Beit Lahia in the north of the Gaza Strip.

On the same day, Israeli forces killed 1 member of a Palestinian resistance group and wounded a second, when an Israeli warplane launched a missile on a group of members of the Salah Eddin Brigades, the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committee. The group was on al-Ashqar land on Sultan Abdul Hamid Street, northwest of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip.

In the Gaza Strip, on 22 October 2012, Israeli forces conducted 3 limited incursions into the north and south of the Gaza Strip. The first incursion was conducted at approximately 08:10, as 7 military vehicles moved 500 meters into the northeast of Beit Lahia in the north of the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces began leveling lands and sporadically opened fire in the area. 20 minutes later, the military vehicles moved to the west and stationed at Khayal land, north of the Agriculture School, while warplanes were flying in the sky. Neither casualties nor damage were reported. The second incursion was conducted at approximately 09:25 when 3 tanks and 2 bulldozers moved 400 meters into Abu al-Kas, east of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip. Israeli forces began leveling lands in the area.

Oct 23
On 23 October 2012, Israeli forces killed 1 member of a Palestinian resistance group and wounded 4 others, whose injuries ranged from moderate to serious. Israeli soldiers positioned at the north-eastern border of the Gaza Strip launched a ground-to-ground missile on a group of members of the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement. The group was launching rockets towards Israeli towns from farming land to the east of al-Salateen Square in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.

On the same day, another member of al-Qassam Brigades was killed and 2 others were seriously wounded by an Israeli airstrike. The al-Qassam Brigades were launching home-made rockets towards Israeli towns from Beit Lahia in the north of the Gaza Strip.

On 23 October 2012, Israeli forces supported by military vehicles moved approximately 300 meters from al-Sreij Gate into al-Qarara, northeast of Khan Yunis in the south of the Gaza Strip. Leveling and bulldozing acts were conducted and fire was opened sporadically before Israeli forces withdrew at 11:00. No casualties were reported.

The illegal Israeli-imposed closure of the Gaza Strip, which has steadily tightened since June 2007, has had a disastrous impact on the humanitarian and economic situation in the Gaza Strip. The illegal closure has caused not only a humanitarian crisis but a crisis of human rights and human dignity for the population of the Gaza Strip. Recently-declared measures to ease the closure are vague, purely cosmetic and fail to deal with the root causes of the crisis; the root causes can only be addressed by an immediate and complete lifting of the closure, including lifting the travel ban into and out of the Gaza Strip and the ban on exports. Palestinians in Gaza may no longer suffer from the same shortage of goods but, as long as the closure is allowed to continue, they will remain economically dependent, unable to care for themselves, and socially, culturally and academically isolated from the rest of the world.