Meet Me in Gaza by Louisa B. Waugh

Author:Louisa B. Waugh
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781908906212
Publisher: Saqi

of all the ports …

As the tahdiya continues, the initial uneasy calm morphs into a sense of stasis. Israel allows more goods to enter Gaza (no mineral water though, even at this humid height of summer). But the volume of people crossing through Erez has barely increased. The Rafah crossing to Egypt is apparently ‘open’ for three days a week, but few people actually manage to leave Gaza; the Egyptians manning the crossing have a reputation for demanding bribes and taking their instructions from Israel.

I’ve lost count of how many Gazans have told me that all they want in this world is two weeks outside the Strip; then they can cope with another stretch inside this interminable siege. Their dreams of having their own sovereign state have faded, just as Gaza has faded from the news. During one of our lessons, Ustaz Mounir tells me he is totally fed up and is against the tahdiya.

‘At least we used to resist the Israeli occupation!’ he says with angry passion. ‘But now what do we have? Nothing. Nothing has changed, life in Gaza has just stopped.’

And much of the time that is exactly how it feels.

Bar the resident aid workers, and the occasional visiting journalist, there are not many foreigners around either. But now there are rumours circling about a flotilla of international activists who are apparently about to brave the Mediterranean and sail from Cyprus to Gaza – just like the ancient Philistines – in order to break the siege.

On my way home from work one afternoon, I stop to buy fruit. The weather is hot and so humid that dust and salt stick to my wet skin. While I’m in the store my jawaal rings. As I struggle to locate it inside my handbag, the bulging bag splits and the fruits tumble out around my feet.

‘Where are you?’ Shadi hollers down the phone, as pomegranates, bananas and mangoes hit the floor and roll around me. ‘Did you come to the port?’

‘What’s going on?’

I can hardly catch a word he is saying; it sounds as though he’s in the middle of a riot.

‘Quick – come to the port! The Free Gaza boats have arrived!’

I scoop the loose fruits up from the floor, tell Muhammad the grocer I’ll be back later and hurry for the port, which is just five minutes away, down a sloping street. Crowds are surging towards the narrow port gates as cheers rise up the street. It’s a thirty-two-hour sail from Cyprus to Gaza. The boats that have just reached the port are the first international vessels to dock here in more than forty years.

I reach the port and start wading through the crowd towards the waterfront. People beam at me, grasping my right hand as I push past. ‘Ahlan wa sahlan fi Gaza!’ Welcome to Gaza!, they call, as others applaud – and shabab elbow their pals and point me out. They must think I’m just off the boat. An elderly, wrinkled man blocks my way. ‘Mabrouk!

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