Looking for Trouble

Leaving the open-air prison that is Gaza, by Gerri Haynes

(Gerri Haynes and Laura Hart, of Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, have returned to Gaza, taking in medicine. Gerri has been sending back reports.)

This morning, Laura and I left Gaza. I’ve visited Gaza many times and have left through the Erez Checkpoint to Israel every time. Never have I had a deeper sense of leaving a prison.

The cab ride from Gaza City takes about ½ hour. The first stop is at the Hamas checkpoint where passports were checked and we were sent on our way. Since Pillar of Cloud, private cars or cabs coming from Gaza can no longer take passengers from the Hamas checkpoint to the departure from Gaza checkpoint – so a second cab is required for this ½ + mile.

At the departure checkpoint, further passport inspection is required and after about 10 minutes (briefer than usual) Laura and I were on our way to Erez – pulling our bags through the ½ mile cage/tunnel to the first set of doors. Through the doors to the first inspection of our luggage, to the first set of turnstiles – up a long sloped floor to another door, down a hall to the second set of turnstiles and into the first gathering room where all luggage/purses/cameras/computers, etc are surrendered to large white bins and an up-sloping conveyor belt that takes everything to an unseen place for an unknown amount of time.

And then the wait begins…ten to twenty people crowd into a small room behind a security-screening device – imagine your basic airport hands-up-in-the-air device and morph it into a more space age whirring-around-the-body device.

Today, Sunday, following the 36 hours of Erez weekend closure, there were dozens and dozens of people waiting to pass from Gaza. Many of these people were ill, many were children, many were mothers or fathers or grandparents accompanying an ill child or adult, some were businessmen. There is no line to enter the screening – everyone crowds into everyone else and some feel entitled to step in front of others.

At one point, after about 30 minutes, I became impatient with healthy men who were crowding in front of women with sick children and I wedged myself between a group of these women and a group of the men – holding one woman after another in place to enter the screening … one elderly woman put her head on my shoulder and kept smiling at me until she was accepted into the screening.

At last, I followed that woman and when we had each completed the next phase of double screening (going back to be checked again in the device); I encountered her in a small open room (Israeli security people looking down at us.) We smiled at each other and hugged – at which point, I was loudly chastised and ordered into two further screening areas, including a partial disrobing search – what a morning!!

By the time, I cleared all of the multiple checks, Laura had gathered our luggage and we passed one-by-one through passport control, into the day and through the Erez fence.

Please note: Our passing is relatively easy – multiply the steps required for a Palestinian leaving Gaza.

By late morning, we arrived in Bethlehem and were greeted by our dear friend Zoughbi Zoughbi, Director of Wi’am. We reviewed some of our time in Gaza and then took a cab to Jericho to visit Zoughbi’s relatives.

As we approached Jericho, I mentioned that I had always wished to visit the monastery on the Mount of Temptation. With hardly a hesitation, we were climbing a rocky path up the mountain.

The view from there over Jericho to the Dead Sea and Jordan is spectacular. We were blessed with a clear, lightly sunny day and as we walked and talked about the future of Palestine, we were treated to a wonderful time for reflection.

Tomorrow, we’ll be talking more about the “next time” we come to Palestine and Israel – and then Laura and I will fly back to Washington. Each time I do this, I am reminded about the inequity of my freedom to travel vs. the incredible challenges faced by Palestinians who wish to travel.

Leaving the open-air prison of Gaza is a bit difficult but travel for Palestinians is plainly hard. Palestinians are stateless, they carry Palestinian identification, not a state-issued passport and many of the privileges of citizenship in a state do not pertain to them.

Most of the people we talked to here hold the hope that the recent UN vote will help to move the Palestinian people closer to having a place they call their state. I hope the next step for them is freedom – which as Yeshayahu Liebowitz, winner of the 1993 Israel prize stated, will only come with justice.

A final note – this is the hope of all my Israeli friends as well.