RAFAH: The border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip is a dusty, hot and noisy spot in the far south of Gaza. For years, the only passage from Gaza to the outside world was a series of underground tunnels in Rafah. Gazans use the tunnels to transport goods, services and people from Egypt into the Gaza Strip. When Egyptian officials opened the border earlier this year, pressure was eased on the tunnel system. Although the border is open, passage is difficult and is strictly yet arbitrarily enforced. People still risk their lives to cross through the tunnels. Gitte Rasmussen is a Danish woman with a degree in Arabic language and culture. In the following, she recounts the story of her journey through this failing borderline: Medics recount that more than 160 Palestinians have died in the underground tunnels running between Israel and Egypt. Like Ashraf and Haytham, two teenage Palestinians who died in the tunnels earlier this year, they die from explosions inside the tunnels. Since Israel imposed a siege on Gaza in 2006, the tunnels have been a vital canal for the isolated strip and its people – as a smuggling tunnel and a lifeline. Now the border has been re-opened, so to speak. This could be the gate to heaven, to life in freedom, to medical treatment, to employment or to friends and family in the Middle East, Europe, Africa or the US. This could be the chance of a new life for Gazans. The official opening of the border is a slim chance for the lucky and few, however. 350 individuals are supposed to be let through every day, but the number varies. It can be higher or lower. Presumably, some are given more of a priority to exit than others. The sick, students, families on visit and surely officials must be on the list. If procedures do exist, though, no one seems to know them. This is the first day of my attempt to return to Egypt. I made a short visit to Gaza to see old friends and do some research. It was my first time back in years. As I arrive at the border, a couple hundred individuals are already waiting by the fences. Their posture tells me that they have been waiting for long already. This is certainly not their first day here. This crowd, Palestinians, foreigners and those in between, have waited for days in the sun, the heat, and the dust for 10-12 hours daily. They are waiting for their lucky number to be chosen, if ever it happens. I try to make my way to the registration gate. I wave my passport around, and the uniformed officials behind the counter do not take notice. I yell loudly, try to make myself heard. There is no visible reaction. I make a second attempt, approaching the iron fence where the crowd is stepping on each other's feet, trying to make their passport noticeable from long-stretched arms. My passport drowns among the many. The few times I manage to catch the eye of an official, he looks away. What can he do? After all, the Egyptians are the ones obligated to Israel, and these Palestinian officers have no actual part in the outcome of this process. Foreigners in the crowd all seem to receive the same answer from the embassies they call. The embassies cannot and will not take action. Going to Gaza was our decision, so getting out is now our problem. It does not feel like the rest of the world is feeling the despair of this place with us, but what can we do? Never go here, never visit our friends and forget that a place called Gaza exists? Children are overly tired and sobbing. There is pleading, negotiation and begging. The uniformed officers are strained and nervous, with sweat springing from their foreheads. As night falls, resignation arrives, and people give up to find shelter for the night. Dust scratches between my teeth and my eyelids swell. The stronger ones stay for a possible last-minute callout. You never know when the border is finally closed. A Belgian woman married to a Palestinian has stubbornly sat down by the fence. Her two infant kids are crying, and she is yelling for attention. Her plane from Egypt is leaving the next day, and in this late hour she has only the compassion of the entrance system to rely on. The rest of us leave to find shelter– sunburned, tired and dusty. We have already been waiting for several hours, without the slightest chance of knowing whether we could be let through today, tomorrow or next week. Repeatedly the words “In'shallah,” God willing, are said so as to keep away resignation. As one more foreign family is told by their embassy to ”wait for their turn,” I cannot help but smile. Do they not know that this is a concept that does not exist here? The expectation of system, of a European ”ordnung-must-sein” (order must be) process, is having an absurd meeting with Palestinian reality right in front of me. The day passes, and resignation arrives. Drop by drop; a small number of Palestinians with their Gaza-IDs are let through. A friend of mine whom I call to ask for help has a friend of a friend working on the other side – maybe he could help? But to find her friend among the few stressed uniformed officials who are blocked by the human mass is more than I can overcome. It has become very late, and our stomachs are yearning for something to fill them up– food, drink or the reassurance of a sure chance to get through. The following morning we arrive at the gates determined that today has to be the day. We have jobs, families and planes to catch. Eight of us form a group and stick our bodies to the entry gate, hours before opening time. Our legs are ready to jump up for the first sign of an opening, and the passports are ready at hand. Rumors are going around. The gates have opened now, and we get through to the next step: the waiting hall before the final gates. Suddenly people of authority arrive. As if they were following a collective command, people storm to these final gates. The place is echoing from the sounds of the masses, children crying, and grown-ups yelling in frustration. The uniformed ones are trying to calm people down without luck, as the gates to the remaining people outside are locked. People stuck outside bang their hands on the walls. They will not let us forget that we were the lucky few who got this far. We are at least 150 people in this terminal hall, and common sense tells us that there will only be room for less than half of us on the bus taking us from here to the border. Still arms are clenching bars, necks are twisted to follow the scene, and ID-papers are held high. The noise is infernal. Hours pass, and then unexpectedly passports are picked out from the masses. People are on their toes; passport of all colors are in the air. Again, some are picked out, and panic is stirred. “Take our passes, take ours!” This is a flash-back: I see the scene in a slightly different desert setting, hunger-struck humans with eyes and long-stretched arms and hands asking for the bags of flour and sugar out of the back of a UN-truck. At this point a fistfight in the pleading crowd is not far away. The density and mass of people is overwhelming. And then, suddenly, the passports of my 8-man group are finally chosen. We succeeded– others did not. “In'shallah” transforms to “Al hamdu lillah.” God's generosity is praised among the lucky crowd of passengers now on board the bus. Relief has taken the place of resignation, and few are even crying. But the despair outside the bus is massive. People are jumping up the sides of the bus, banging the windows, crying. They know this day is concluded, and they were not the lucky ones. Every minute is a potential chance, a potential open gate or a potentially closed one. Nothing can be calculated. By coincidence, a few are randomly picked out from the crowd after being told long ago to go home. The feeling of relief and sudden joy of being let through quickly evaporates, and a heavy sadness takes over. The situation seems grotesque. Do these people deserve to be treated this way, like hungry animals in a cage? These faces are no longer strangers to me, and somehow that makes their situation seem even more unworthy of their presence in it. I remind myself to remember and take note of the fact that neither the waiting people nor the uniformed officials at any time let their frustration transform into hatred. As the bus slowly pulls away on the “right” side of the border, I do not find it strange that an arrival in Gaza is never greeted with a “Welcome to Gaza.” Gaza has been physically and politically isolated under Hamas rule since June 2007, when Hamas split from the government and took power in Gaza. This has had a great effect on living conditions for Gaza residents, who suffer great deprivation. Since January, calls for a unity deal between Hamas and Fatah have been fierce in the streets of Ramallah. In May, Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party signed a surprise unity deal with Hamas, and the parties agreed to form an interim government to prepare for elections. Slight support of the Abbas bid for full Palestinian recognition and membership in the UN has been seen in Gaza, but the Hamas government has banned popular rallies concerning the bid. This was allegedly done in agreement with Fatah, so to “avoid any unrest.” The Prime Minister of Gaza, Ismael Haniyeh, spoke last Friday after prayers, stating that he would support a Palestinian state only with full Palestinian sovereignty. Begging for a state at the UN will harm Palestinian dignity, he said. Haniyeh stated: “We support the principle of statehood but liberation comes first, we do not want to beg for a state.” Instead, the Palestinians should be focusing on national unity. “We have reservations about going to the UN because we believe it's under American control and the political orientation for the UN is useless,” he added. BM
