Kicked out of Gaza by Hamas: Alas, just as i had installed myself in the palestinian trauma centre, ready to stay there for the following weak to help Pete with his work their with the children, whilst waiting for Nora and Fred to arrive with Viva Palestina.. Hamas gave us all STRICT orders to leave immediately! They announced that there were rumours of the launch of another Israeli war on Gaza, and they could under no circumstanced allow us to stay for our own security. This was the saddest news ever, and even though we tried for several hours negotiating with Hamas their position didn't change. Even a group of Amnesty people from London had been employed to work at the Palestine Center for Human Rights the next 6 months were forced out. I was in tears when saying goodbye to Ahmed and all the other incredible people we met in Gaza. Yet, when we were driving out through the Raffah border again I was determined to return again whenever the opportunity occurs.
Cairo updates: All the way from Raffah to Cairo a line of police cars followed our bus, not allowing us to stop at anytime to get food or go to the bathroom out of fear that we would start marching back to Gaza. Back in Police-state Cairo we were received by a brigade of police cars, who then escorted us to our hostels, constantly shouting paranoid questions at us "Raffah??Gaza!!?". During our de-brief session with some of the 1300 CodePink delegates who had remained in Cairo we were informed about the activities they had been doing while we were in Gaza. The Freedom march had been incredibly powerful, with both internationas and egytians taking direct action, resisting the violent police force and ending with a symbolic peaceful sit-down in the Cairo central square. Tragically, many peace marchers had been severely injured, some had even broken their ribs! This made our march in Gaza seem even more weak in comparison, none of those kinds of sacrifices had been made by the Gaza delegation. Other actions in Cairo had been a camp outside the Israeli Embassy and raising the Palestinian flag on the Giza pyramids.
A Gaza Freedom Mach "Boycott Israel" declaration has been initiated by the South African CodePink delegation, please sign it via this website: http://www.scottishpsc.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3017:gaza-freedom-marchers-issue-the-qcairo-declarationq-to-end-israeli-apartheid-&catid=530:international-voices&Itemid=200489
DENIED entry into Israel: yesterdat a group of codepink delegated and I decided to begin a jouney towards Israel, to see Jerusalem, the settlements, the west bank, and get the other perspective on the palestinian issue, and I was hoping to perhaps join Kat there. Yet we were met by a brutal rejection at the Iraeli border by Taba. They kept us in the border control office for 13 hours, from 5am to 6pm. We were strip-searched, and our bags were emptied at least 20 times by 20 different Israeli border control staff - they carelessly spread our stuff all over the place, which meant that we all lost some of out items, in my case that meant my ONLy credit card.. We were interrogated a million times, with questions such as ' are you a member of any left-wing groups' , 'are you jewish or have any jewish family?', 'what do you think is great about our country and why do you wanna visit it?', and of course they asked a thousand questions about why we were in Gaza, which they referred to as 'the southern part of Israel'. When I tried explaining them about the trauma centre they looked at me all puzzled and asked why there was a need for a trauma centre, "Miss, do you believe there is any TRAUMA in Israel!?". It was all kicked off when they found the "Palestine Guidebook" in my bag, after which the israeli staff searching through my bag gave me a cold look asking loudly "Excuse Miss, WHAT IS PALESTINE!? I have never heard of such a thing". During the final interview they took us all into a small room individually. When my brittish friend was in their we suddenly heard loud screams, and stormed to the door together with other tourists waiting in the hall to try to get him out. But we were quickly grapped by some of the military staff there, who dragged us out of the building on to the egyptian side of the border with "DENIED ENTRY INTO ISRAEL' stamps in our passports. "you will NEVER come back to our country' they said as they left us. Later when our friend joined us at the egytian border control, were we had to wait for another 4 hours, he told us the israeli had beaten him up and punched him in his face 3 times because he had asked them why Gaza and the West Bank weren't on the map of Israel/Palestine in their office.
Stuck in no man's land: So now after having been rejected by governments on all sies of the Gaza conflicts, a group of codepink delegates and I have now gone into exile along the coast of the Red Sea, maybe this will give us some time to rest and digest after two weeks of police/government/border-crossing/humanitarian activism struggle and all the emotional turbulence involved.
All my thoughts are with Fred and Nora, who I truly hope, Inshallah, will get safely into Gaza, with all aid vehicles being shipped over.
Please keep showing them all your support and thanks for all the support you hve given Kat and I.
Peace in the Middle East, Free Gaza.
Love, Marie
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From Gaza
ReplyDeleteMarie , am so sorry you had to leave that way and so soon , but you’ve seen the situation , we had nothing to do for you , am so sorry , I was hoping that you may stay as long as you want , but anyway they were two incredible days with you here , and we really appreciate what you have done , and what you are trying to do , thank you very much for doing your best in effort to break the siege on Gaza .please , never put yourself on the line for us , you better stay on the safe sideI hope we will be able to meet again soon . maybe one day I’ll be visiting you back there in the UK ^_^ , who knows ..
Good luck
Ahmed