Summary
Palestinian writer whose attempt to enter Gaza from Egypt through the Rafah crossing, with her parents and two-year-old son Yousuf, is told in Chapter 3, “Outside In”, of Palestine Inside Out as the reverse of Mona el-Farra’s attempt to leave (Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, PDF p.213-215).
Details
- Rafah was closed, with rumours it would open soon; thousands waited on the Egyptian side — patients seen in Egypt trying to get home to Gaza, businessmen, students returning to visit parents, and labourers working abroad (PDF p.213).
- She recalls standing for hours “packed together elbow to elbow like cattle, penned in between steel barriers on one end, and riot-geared Egyptian security guards on the perimeter, who were given orders not to allow anyone through until they hear otherwise from the Israelis” (PDF p.213).
- In July 2006 seven Palestinians waiting at Rafah died of exposure and deprivation; in March 2007 a sixty-one-year-old man travelling for heart treatment died in a surge of the crowd of 5,000 when the crossing opened for the first time in days (PDF p.213-214).
- She says of the waiting: “It is something of your humanity slowly drifting away. It is gradual, but unmistakable. And you are never quite the same again.” (PDF p.214)
- Egyptian guards then ordered all Palestinians to withdraw from the terminal, including those who had reached the Gaza side, now sealed by Israeli orders; her plea — “It took us six hours to get inside the terminal, please let us through” — was refused, and a more sympathetic guard told her: “no one gives a damn what happens to you—you could sit here and suffocate for all they care. You are simply not human enough for them to care.” (PDF p.214)
- Inside the terminal, “It was nothing short of an internment camp”; the family spent the night in el-Arish in a room without hot water, while hundreds unable to afford rooms slept at the crossing itself, and the next day waited five more hours before giving up (PDF p.214-215).
Related pages
Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, Mona el-Farra, Gaza, Closure system