{"id":7772,"date":"2011-06-16T10:43:02","date_gmt":"2011-06-16T06:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=7772"},"modified":"2011-07-16T13:11:45","modified_gmt":"2011-07-16T09:11:45","slug":"the-living-nightmare-that-is-the-rafah-crossing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-politics-analysis\/the-living-nightmare-that-is-the-rafah-crossing\/","title":{"rendered":"The Living Nightmare That is the Rafah Crossing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>For most Palestinians, leaving Gaza through Egypt is as exasperating a process as\u00a0entering it. Governed by political and cultural sensitivities, most Palestinian\u00a0officials and public figures refrain from criticizing the way Palestinians are\u00a0treated at the Rafah border. However, there is really no diplomatic language to\u00a0describe the relationship between desperate Palestinians \u2013 some literally fighting\u00a0for their lives – and Egyptian officials at the crossing which separates Gaza from\u00a0Egypt.<\/p>\n

\u201cGazans are treated like animals at the border,\u201d a friend of mine told me. She was\u00a0afraid that her fianc\u00e9 would not be allowed to leave Gaza, despite the fact that his\u00a0papers were in order. Having crossed the border myself just a few days ago, I could\u00a0not disagree with her statement.<\/p>\n

The New York Times reported on June 8: \u201cAfter days of acrimony between Hamas and\u00a0Egypt over limitations on who could pass through the Rafah border crossing between\u00a0Gaza and Egypt, Hamas said Egypt had agreed to allow 550 people a day to leave Gaza\u00a0and to lengthen the operating hours of the crossing.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so the saga continues.<\/p>\n

A few weeks after an official Egyptian announcement to \u2018permanently\u2019 open the border\u00a0– thus extending a lifeline for trapped Palestinians under siege in Gaza – the Rafah\u00a0border was opened for two days of conditional operation in late May, and then closed\u00a0again for four days. Now it has once more \u2018reopened\u2019.<\/p>\n

All the announcements are proving to be no more than rhetoric. The latest\u00a0\u2018permanent\u2019 reopening has come with its own conditions and limitations, involving\u00a0such factors as gender, age, purpose of visit, and so on.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to\u00a0his country,\u201d states Article 13 (2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.\u00a0This universal principle, however, continues to evade most Palestinians in Gaza.<\/p>\n

I was one of the very first Palestinians who stood at Rafah following the\u00a0announcement of a \u2018permanent\u2019 opening. Our bus waited at the gate for a long time. I\u00a0watched a father repeatedly try to reassure his crying six-year-old child, who\u00a0displayed obvious signs of a terrible bone disease.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet the children out or they will die,\u201d shouted an older passenger as he gasped for\u00a0air. The heat in the bus, combined with the smell of trapped sweat was unbearable.<\/p>\n

Passengers took it upon themselves to leave the bus and stand outside, enduring\u00a0disapproving looks from the Egyptian officials. Our next task was finding clean\u00a0water and a shady spot in the arid zone separating the Egypt and Palestinian sides.\u00a0There were no restrooms.<\/p>\n

A tangible feeling of despair and humiliation could be read on the faces of the Gaza\u00a0passengers.<\/p>\n

No one seemed to be in the mood to speak of the Egyptian revolution, a favorite\u00a0topic of conversation among most Palestinians. This zone is governed by an odd\u00a0relationship, one that goes back many years \u2013 well before Egypt, under Hosni\u00a0Mubarak, decided to shut down the border in 2006 in order to aid in the political\u00a0demise of Hamas.<\/p>\n

The issue actually has nothing to do with gender, age or logistics. All Palestinians\u00a0are treated very poorly at the Rafah crossing, and they continue to endure even\u00a0after the toppling of Mubarak, his family and the dismissal of the corrupt security\u00a0apparatus. The Egyptian revolution is yet to reach Gaza.<\/p>\n

When the bus was finally allowed to enter about five hours later, Palestinians\u00a0dashed into the gate, desperately hoping to be among the lucky ones allowed to go\u00a0in. The anxiety of the travellers usually makes them vulnerable to workers at the\u00a0border who promise them help in exchange for negotiated amounts of money. All of\u00a0this is actually a con, as the decision is made by a single man, referred to as\u00a0al-Mukhabarat, the \u2018intelligence\u2019.<\/p>\n

Some are sent back while others are allowed entry. Everyone is forced to wait for\u00a0many hours \u2013 sometimes even days – with no clear explanation as to what they are\u00a0waiting for, or why they are being sent back.<\/p>\n

The very ill six-year-old held on his dad\u2019s jacket as they walked about, frantically\u00a0trying to fulfill all the requirements. Both seemed like they were about to\u00a0collapse.<\/p>\n

The Mukhabarat determined that three Gaza students on their way to their\u00a0universities in Russia were to be sent back. They had jumped through many hoops\u00a0already to make it so far. Their hearts sank when they heard the verdict. I\u00a0protested on their behalf, and the decision was as arbitrarily reversed as it was\u00a0originally made.<\/p>\n

Those who are sent back to Gaza are escorted by unsympathetic officers to the same\u00a0open spot, to wait for the same haggard bus. Some of those who are allowed entry are\u00a0escorted by security personnel across the Sinai desert, all the way to Cairo\u00a0International Airport to be \u2018deported\u2019 to their final destinations. They are all\u00a0treated like common criminals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can’t watch my son die in front of my eyes,\u201d screamed the father of 11-year-old\u00a0Mohammed Ali Saleh, according to Mohammed Omer for IPS (June 10). He was addressing\u00a0Egyptian troops days after the border was supposedly \u2018permanently\u2019 reopened – for\u00a0the second time in less than a week.<\/p>\n

Such compelling needs as medical treatment, education and freedom keep bringing\u00a0Palestinians back. The Israeli siege has chocked Gaza to the point of near complete\u00a0strangulation. Egypt is Gaza\u2019s only hope.<\/p>\n

\u201cI beg you to open the crossing\u2026You brothers of Egypt have humiliated us for so\u00a0long. Isn’t it time we had our dignity back?\u201d said Naziha Al-Sebakhi, 63, one of the\u00a0many distressed faces at the Rafah border, according to Mohammed Omer.<\/p>\n

As they crossed into Egypt, some of the passengers seemed euphoric. The three\u00a0Russian students and I shared a taxi to Cairo. A tape of Umm Kulthum\u2019s \u2018Amal Hyati\u2019\u00a0\u2013 Hope of my Life \u2013 played over and over again. Despite everything, the young men\u00a0seemed to hold no resentment whatsoever towards Egypt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just love Egypt\u2026I don\u2019t know why,\u201d said Majid pensively, before falling asleep\u00a0from sheer exhaustion.<\/p>\n

I thought of the six-year-old boy and his dad. I wonder if they made it to the\u00a0hospital on time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RAMZY BAROUD: The process of leaving Gaza through the Rafah Crossing to Egypt can only be described as a ‘human lottery’. A deeply unpleasant, humiliating lottery. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":7774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,124,82,171,119,60],"tags":[378,18300,278,227,2538,126,18297,18344,7179,2278],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7772"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}