Cursed Victory by Ahron Bregman

Author:Ahron Bregman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus
Published: 2014-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

The March 1993 closure

Meanwhile, back in the occupied territories, tensions between Palestinians and the army were growing, reaching a climax in March 1993 when Palestinian activists killed fifteen Israelis. The army reacted forcefully by dissecting the Palestinian occupied territories into four areas: the north and south of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. They then sealed off the areas from each other and from Israel, imposing a closure that went on for weeks, inflicting a devastating blow on all aspects of Palestinian life. Medical services, for instance, were hit hard, as was the case in such places as the Al Maqassed Hospital in East Jerusalem.

A general hospital serving the population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and which offered special services not available in other hospitals in the territories, Al Maqassed lost not only many of its patients, but also staff – doctors, nurses and technicians, who could not travel freely, particularly from the Gaza Strip, from where motor vehicles were not allowed to depart. The closure led to a sharp decline in the number of outpatient visits, hospital admissions and surgical operations performed. During the first three weeks of the closure, only approximately 44 per cent of the usual number of patients used outpatient facilities and the number of persons admitted to the hospital declined by 20 per cent. There was also a 50 per cent decline in the number of women residents of the West Bank who gave birth at Al Maqassed Hospital, many now being forced to give birth at home.12

The closure also hit the educational system across the Palestinian occupied territories, where teachers and pupils, unable to travel, found it difficult to get to schools. Aref Abdallah al-Khatib, from the village of Hizmeh (4,000 people), in the central West Bank, describes the difficulties caused by the closure: ‘The high school-age girls study in Beit Hanina in East Jerusalem, some 8 kilometres from the village,’ he explains.

On 19 April, 1993, the army placed a roadblock at the entrance of the village, preventing the girls from reaching school by foot. In addition, some 30 high school students who live in the village and study in various schools in East Jerusalem and Ramallah are unable to get to school. There are some seventy 3–4 year-old children in the village who attend nursery school in Beit Hanina. Since the erection of the roadblock, these children have been unable to reach school. There are teachers at the boys’ school who live in Ramallah. These teachers are held up every morning at the roadblock on the Jerusalem–Ramallah road, and thus school begins late every day.13

The closure also had a dramatic impact on the Palestinian economy. In its first two months, the primary source of purchasing power in the Gaza Strip turned out to be the monthly salaries of UNRWA, the UN arm operating in the occupied Palestinian lands and employing Palestinians, and civil administration employees. These salaries amounted to $5m per month, a small sum in comparison to

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