Nine

I had come to Gaza with one bag, I was leaving with two; a Gazan friend living in Ireland and unable to return to the Strip needed garments from home. On arrival my bag had been full of gifts for Gazans, now it was full of gifts from Gazans; even the blockade cannot cancel out Palestinian generosity. Saying goodbye was easier here than on the West Bank; if the Gate remains open I can revisit the Strip. But the Israelis have blacklisted those who signed on for Freedom Flotilla II – which means exclusion from the West Bank for at least ten years and by 2021 I’m likely to be either dead or dotty.

Several friends wished to help me through the Gate, then discovered that only travellers are allowed into Rafah’s departure zone. This let me off a hook; otherwise, how to choose which friend(s)? And how to prevent a potentially awkward Fatah/Hamas convergence?

When I asked kind Deeb to ring Abdallah in Cairo I thought I was countering my overoptimistic nature by giving 11.00 am as our meeting time. I would surely be in Egypt long before then; leaving the Strip, Deeb had assured me, is much simpler than entering.

At the Shifa serveece terminal I paused to say goodbye to two of the dozen donkeys who arrive there early every morning, drawing loads of vegetables, fruits, eggs; their flat carts serve as stalls. I pitied them as they stood all day fully exposed to the sun, never unharnessed because where could they be tethered? With two I had a special relationship; their heads rose when I called from a distance and they enjoyed between-the-ear massages. These social occasions greatly entertained the serveece drivers.

By 7.50 I was outside Rafah’s Departure Hall. On the way to the Gate everybody must pass through this building which, from outside, rather resembles a cattle-shed on a Soviet collective farm. I dragged my bags up its steep steps, then decided to linger briefly, observing the scene. Most of the 400 or so would-be-travellers seemed to have spent the night in situ and there was a querulous undertone to their noisiness. I could see only one free chair, beside an old man wearing the flowing white robes and traditional turban of a pilgrim to Mecca. At the far end of this high, well-lit hall a counter separates officialdom from its prey. Here Gazans who have registered a departure date with the Department of Transport (at least a month before) must present their papers. Behind the counter three doors lead to inner layers of bureaucracy. Proceedings are scheduled to begin at 8.00 am but not until 8.15 did seven men saunter into view, being greeted by angry shouts. Three were neatly uniformed youngsters (their uniforms anonymous), four were slightly older policemen. Despite the restless and increasingly vocal crowd they didn’t at once start work but spent the next twenty minutes chatting, joking, smoking, drinking tea, texting – all the time wandering in and out of those doors. Within this traveller, irritation and impatience were already beginning to accumulate – not yet on my own behalf but because Gazans suffer enough at the hands of the Israelis without also being tormented by their own.

When at last the three youngsters went on duty a crowd surged towards the counter and the police maintained order – more or less – while papers were being sent to an inner office in fat bundles. As these reappeared, a distorting public address system summoned the lucky owners. I couldn’t possibly have heard ‘Dervla Murphy’, as pronounced by a Palestinian, above the din of an excited, frustrated, argumentative crowd – always four or five people standing by the counter, angrily disputing an official verdict. Luckily, as an International, I didn’t have to jump through this hoop; Deeb had instructed me to deal with the office (a converted container) by Gate 1.

I showed my passport to two policemen, indicating that I must leave the Hall – whereupon they shouted at me truculently, as though I were trying to jump the queue. They and all their colleagues were obviously ignorant of the rules as Deeb had explained them. I must stay in the Hall until my passport had been checked, though no one here was authorised to check it. Our confrontation attracted some attention and now another robed and turbaned pilgrim, an English-speaker, reprimanded the police. They argued on, glaring at me with unearned animosity, until my rescuer shouted at them, his tone contemptuous. He then carried my bags down the steps and pointed across an already hot expanse of desert to the distant Gate.

As I hauled my bags through deep sand, with some difficulty, an agreeable young Egyptian offered assistance and advice. His badge identified him as a Haj guide, free to operate on both sides of the gates. I must sit in the café near the office and be patient. When all the day’s pilgrims had got through, the Egyptian border control would signal their readiness to deal with Internationals. Then someone would lead me through the Gate, after my passport had been processed by the office staff. I didn’t like that word ‘processed’; it suggested a procedure much more long-drawn-out than ‘stamped’.

The crowded ‘café’ – a patch of fine, pale gold sand under a canvas awning – was furnished with scores of low plastic tables and chairs and provisioned by two barrows selling chai, coffee, Nescafé-with-tinned-milk, juices, water and sundry vile comestibles. Thirty yards away rose Gate 1, wide and high; beyond, visible between its bars, lay that odd no man’s land instituted by EUBAM. Beside the Gate, agitated people clustered around the Office, jostling for a turn on the high step; below it one could not see or have a reasonable exchange with those within.

As I looked around for a seat Dalia caught my eye and beckoned me to usurp her ten-year-old daughter’s chair. Fairuz sat happily on mamma’s lap and told me she wanted to learn a lot more English. Her twenty-year-old sister held a sleeping baby, the first grandchild. At the next table, talking to male friends, sat father and one of four teenage sons. In public even the most united Gazan families tend to segregate themselves.

The Zeidans were beginning their fourth day of waiting; on the previous Thursday, Wednesday and Tuesday they had sat in this café from 8.00 am to 6.00 pm. They were on their way to Ismailia to spend a month with Dalia’s sister from whom they had been cut off for six years. Fairuz (who had transferred to my lap the better to learn English) now announced that this would be her last waiting day. Noticeably, none of the many children in this misfortunate crowd had the standard (for us) supply of books, games and art materials. Yet most seemed cheerfully resigned to their Rafah experience: evidently they had inner resources undeveloped by our over-entertained young.

I then discovered that Gazans, having been processed in the Hall, had to be reprocessesed here. ‘Why?’ I asked. Dalia shrugged and smiled and offered no explanation. But she urged me to present my passport at the Office without delay, not to wait as the young Haj guide had advised. ‘If there’s trouble,’ said she, ‘it’s good to know sooner.’

I looked at my watch: 10.40 – almost time for Abdallah to be parking outside Gate 2. Anxiety set in as I joined the crowd around the small barred window through which documents were pushed to and fro. Only one at a time could stand on the little step and queuing didn’t feature. Briefly I hesitated on the edge of the crowd: someone might take pity on the aged International. Over-optimism in action … Entering the fray, I elbowed my way onto the step with Arabic imprecations assaulting my ears. Momentarily the Office was empty; it contained two easy chairs with torn upholstery, one badly dented metal filing cabinet (c.1950), and one landline phone (c.1960) on a small table. Until the power went off a mobile fan whirred in a corner.

The three officials returned together: Ali and his assistants, none uniformed. Ali was small, slight, thirty-ish, with a short beard, heavy brows, thin lips, a narrow face, hard eyes – a man who might not find ‘honour killing’ too difficult. Without greeting me he added my passport to a pile, then took another pile for the consideration of some more important official in a sprawling building overlooking no man’s land. One of his mates barked at me, gesturing eloquently – ‘Off the step!’ I compromised, moving down and to one side while clinging to a window bar. Having handed over my passport, I was reluctant to lose sight of those in charge. Now I was being severely heat-punished; it was near noon in mid-summer at sea level and only the café offered shade.

One man was always on the move, taking papers and passports to and from that distant office. Meanwhile the Gate was being repeatedly opened for departing vehicles, usually Mecca-bound coaches towing enormous UN-blue trailers piled high. Another man made many phone calls, sometimes speaking simultaneously to his mobile and the landline. In between, he filled in countless forms, using a dainty, tiny Arabic script that ill-matched his hairy thick-fingered hands. Only Ali – I noticed later – made entries in a stout leather-bound ledger, perhaps a Mandate left-over.

I was obsessionally watching the time. When Ali returned after 18 minutes I begged him to attend next to my passport. He spoke no English but Dalia had despatched her son, Tarek, to interpret. Ali scrutinised my document closely, scowling while turning the pages as though they were smeared with shit – which to him they were, showing all those Ben-Gurion entry stamps. When challenged, I pointed out that one can’t study the Palestinians’ problems without entering Israel. Peevishly he demanded, ‘Why interested in Palestinians?’ I told him, but afterwards Tarek and I agreed that the idea of ‘writing a book’ was not within his grasp.