Never-ending struggle

Once again in its 4,000 years of turbulent history Gaza has been transformed into a wasteland by warfare. This time Israel is the guilty power. More than 43,000 Gazans have been killed and 100,000 wounded, of whom 70 per cent are women and children, and 1.9 million of the 2.3 million Gazans have been displaced.

While Israel is waging a military campaign to drive the population south, 75,000-95,000 Gazans remain in Jabalia refugee camp and the towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hannoun. Israel has clamped a tight siege on the area and blocked the entry of food, water, and medical supplies, prompting the UN to warn famine is imminent. Israeli human rights organisations accuse the Netanyahu government of implementing a “generals’ plan” to force Palestinians to flee if they do not want to starve.

A senior Israeli military officer said last week that the Israeli army had no intention of allowing Gazans to return to the north if they leave. They know that Israeli settlers are waiting to recolonise the strip. Commenting on Israel’s intentions, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres suggested that Israel had been thwarted only by Gazans’ determination to remain in their homes and Arab refusal to accept a mass exodus. Gazans are caught between Israel’s push from the north and Egypt’s closed gate at Rafah in the south. Fully controlled by Israel by land, air and sea, Gaza is more isolated and vulnerable than ever before. To better understand Gaza’s plight, herewith a portrait of Gaza, the land, and its people during the past 75 years.

When Israel was established by war in 1948-1949, Gaza – which had a population of 80,000 – became a dumping ground for 200,000 Palestinians driven from the coastal areas of their country. Egypt took control of Gaza. The refugees depended on the UN for shelter, food, basic education and health care while both refugees and native Gazans turned toward Cairo for university education, business, and travel within and outside the region. There was a rail link between Gaza and Egypt. I took the train from Rafah to Cairo where the ancient statue of Pharoah Ramses II stood outside the railway station.

There was constant contact and interchange between Gazans and Egyptians. This was disrupted briefly when Israel invaded Gaza between October 1956 and March 1957 during the British and French war on Egypt to take back control of the Suez Canal which had been nationalised by Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Furious over this debacle, US President Dwight Eisenhower ordered Britain and France to desist and Israel to withdraw from Gaza and Sinai.

After its 1967 conquest and occupation of Gaza, Israel engineered the re-development of Gaza in order to make Gazans economically dependent on Israel and provide cheap labour for its farming, manufacturing, and restaurant sectors. Many Gazan families prospered as tens of thousands of Gazans, particularly teachers, secured employment in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf and labourers travelled to Israel daily for jobs. From 1970 through the 2000s, universities and technical institutes mushroomed across Gaza. Following the First Intifada in 1987, the founding of Hamas in Gaza and the 1991 US-led war to liberate Kuwait from Iraq, the number of Gaza workers allowed into Israel was reduced. Strict security controls were imposed at the northern Erez crossing into Israel.

The First Intifada ended with the 1993 Oslo Accord which brought positive change to Gaza. While Israel did not withdraw soldiers and settlers from the strip, Palestinians were accorded a measure of self-rule. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat returned in 1994 to reside in Gaza City and Ramallah in the West Bank. Gazan entrepreneurs established businesses and built hotels on the sea front in the expectation of visiting expatriates and tourists. Elections for the Palestinian president and parliament were held and won by Arafat and his Fatah party in 1996 and legislative assembly buildings were constructed in Gaza City and Ramallah. My friend Rawia Shawwa became an independent lawmaker with a focus on Gaza.

Negotiations on Israeli withdrawal, Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, and security floundered in 2000 and the Second Intifada erupted that September. The Beirut summit in March 2002 adopted the Saudi peace plan which offered Israel full relations in exchange for full withdrawal from Arab territory conquered in 1967. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon responded by invading the West Bank and cracking down heavily on Palestinian unrest. In August 2005, however, he withdrew Israeli soldiers and settlers from Gaza while asserting remote control of the strip. He concentrated on expanding settlements in the West Bank with the aim of annexing all or parts of that territory.

Angered and frustrated by Fatah’s failure to secure an end to the occupation and tackle corruption, Palestinians voted a Hamas majority in the legislature in the 2006 election. Hamas took control of Gaza in June 2007 after Fatah attempted to mount a coup against it. Since then, Israel has besieged and blockaded Gaza, prompting Gazans and Egyptian entrepreneurs to dig more than 1,000 tunnels to connect Rafah to Egypt’s Sinai. Everything and anything denied by Israel was smuggled through the tunnels: food and medicine, cement, building materials, spare parts for vehicles, cars, fuel, fertilizer, and livestock. I was treated to imported Kashmiri Chai, spiced tea, at a cafe during an afternoon interview with optimistic young Gazans. The tunnels gave Gazans a measure of freedom of movement. The tunnels provided employment for thousands, made several businessmen millionaires, and benefitted Egypt’s Sinai Bedouin. Gaza’s strangled economy grew. Life in Gaza during the tunnels was almost normal. The Egyptians tried and failed to block the tunnels with an underground wall but in 2013 managed to destroy them, leaving Israel’s blockade of all but the most essential items. Gazans who wanted to visit or leave had to revert to Israel for permission.

Israel waged war against Hamas in Gaza in 2008-2009, 2012, 2014, and 2021. These wars have taken a heavy toll on Gazans and the strip, but all four put together did not compare with the current deadly and devastating Israeli offensive. Israel launched the 2003-2004 full-scale war on Gaza after the October 7th, 2003, attack on southern Israel by Hamas which killed 1,139 and abducted 251. While that ill-considered, mismanaged, brutal operation is regarded by Israelis and most Westerners as the cause of the current conflict, this began in fact in January 1949 when Israeli forces – which had driven the Egyptian army from Gaza – signed a truce with Egypt and withdrew temporarily. This launched the never-ending struggle for possession of Palestine now being fought in Gaza and the West Bank.

Photo: TNS