Female power

Palestinian women returning to Gaza following the Israeli army’s reopening of the Rafah terminal with Egypt are among the bravest in this region. Last year, seven in ten women dying in worldwide conflicts were killed in Gaza. Life expectancy has been cut by 30 years. For the more than one million women and girls who have been displaced, many multiple times, there is neither safety nor stability.

Thousands have lost fathers, brothers, husbands, income and protection. More than 58,600 households are now headed by women who not only care for their children but also orphans, the elderly and injured. Women deprive themselves of food and blankets to feed and warm their children. They are denied privacy and have to share communal toilets catering for 1,000. Despite certain privation and misery once they enter Gaza, women seek to return and face the prospect of a difficult crossing into the strip.

Having fled Gaza or resided outside the strip before Israel’s latest war, many have been banned while those allowed to return have faced harassment and insult at the Rafah crossing. On the first day that the crossing opened, 38 of the 50 approved for entry did not make it through the Palestinian side of the crossing, some for unexplained Israeli “security screening” reasons, others over bulky or large luggage.

The 12 permitted to enter Gaza were detained, searched, and interrogated and left to wait hours before crossing into Gaza where they were confronted by the European Union Border Assistance Mission for the Rafah Crossing Point (EUBAM Rafah). They were driven to an open area where they were subjected to full-body searches carried out by a woman accompanied by two men who belonged to the Israeli-recruited, trained and armed Palestine Abu-Shabab militia. This was followed by being blindfolded and bound and three hours of interrogation by an Israeli official who used insulting language with the aim of humiliating them. Pressure was put on at least one to become an Israeli informant, betraying her people. Each was allowed a mobile phone and $650, if a declaration on funds had been submitted 24 hours ahead of their travel. Those who did not were allowed $60. Medicine and goods, including children’s toys, were confiscated.

Al-Jazeera cited the International Commission to Support Palestinian People’s Rights (ICSPR) which vehemently condemned Israeli operation of the crossing, arguing that “they had turned “travel and return into a symbolic procedure that falls short of a genuine and comprehensive opening.” The ICSPR complained that Israel had transformed the Rafah crossing “into a tool of control and domination rather than a humanitarian passage.”

The women were finally bussed to al-Mawasi tent camp near Khan Yunis where they were engulfed in Gaza’s post-war, daily violated ceasefire reality in which 500 Palestinians have been killed, 1,400 injured and 715 retrieved from beneath the rubble. Since the war began, nearly 72,000 Gazans, of whom 83 per cent have been civilians, were slain. This is an underestimate.

Most returnees belong to the displaced majority: their homes have been bombed or bulldozed by Israel, family members killed, wounded, and rendered homeless. Returnees must go to the overcrowded area which Hamas controls as the Israeli army has occupied 53-58 per cent of the strip and continues to conduct raids and operations in the rest of the strip. At least 1.9 million Gazans out of 2.2 million have been displaced and 83 per cent of residential buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed while highways and roads have been bombed and torn up, making movement difficult. Returnees not only face deprivation as supplies of food and medicine are insufficient due to Israel’s tight controls and blockade, but they also must deal with the challenges posed by Gaza’s grim reality. Gaza is, after all, home. They identify as Gazans as were born and raised in Gaza City and it strip’s towns and countryside. Gaza was not always a wasteland. Before the 1967 Israeli occupation, Gaza was governed by Egypt, a train linked Rafah to Cairo, Gazan scholars attended Egyptian universities and there was freedom of movement.

With Israel’s occupation, the situation changed for the worse, particularly since October 2023 as Israel has damaged or destroyed power generation plants and distribution networks, Gaza has no electricity for the population. Power provided by generators and solar panels is used for hospitals and water desalination. Since men can no longer go to their offices, shops, manufacturing plants, and farms, unemployment has risen to 80 per cent, almost entirely among men although women comprise 19 per cent of workforce. Families face deprivation of home and hearth. Most Gazans live in fraying tents or temporary shelters which do not keep out cold and rain. Although 100,000 tents have entered Gaza tents they do not protect against winter storms and related illnesses. Eleven children have, reportedly, died of hypothermia. Women must preserve their families, maintain cleanliness by washing bodies and clothing, secure supplies and cook meals over fires fuelled by polluting plastic, garbage and flammable rubble as there is no wood in wasteland Gaza.

Photo: TNS