The Aftermath. Sarah Helm

poignant as their former homes – lying just across the perimeter walls and fences – are so close.

      Prison or not, Gaza today is certainly besieged; its land borders north and east adjoin Israel, which controls all movement in and out, and its coastal waters are patrolled by Israeli gunboats. The southern border adjoins Egypt, which has also shut itself off from Gaza in recent months.

      Gaza has no port and no airport. Tunnels built in recent years by Hamas and leading to Egypt [for smuggling goods] and to Israel [for military incursions] are now all shut off.

      For road traffic in from Israel a single crossing point exists to the south at Kerem Shalom. For human traffic the only way in and out of Gaza is through the main northern checkpoint at Erez. A large and modern terminal, Erez was envisaged as an international border when the chance of peace existed, but it always had a “dual use” and serves today as a prison gate: permission to pass must be sought from Israel and for most Gazans – whose travel documents or so-called passports all bear numbers issued and controlled by Israel – exit is refused. The day I “went in” – the expression used nowadays for visiting Gaza – a single Palestinian returning from an exceptional hospital visit in Jerusalem was “going back in”. Like me, he was impaled on the prongs of narrow turnstiles. At the far side we were both ejected into an endless walkway – an open-sided funnel, stretching across a no-man’s land. I followed my fellow travellers’ white plastic bags as they swung wildly, slashed by horizontal rain and wind, which roared down the funnel.

      1 See The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem (1947-1949) by Benny Morris, Cambridge University Press 1987 ↵

      2 See Gaza A History by Jean Pierre Filiu, C.Hurst & Co Publishers, London 2014 ↵