Two days after the flotilla massacres on May 31, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt announced in response to mass demonstrations in Cairo and across the world, that Egypt was opening the Rafah border crossing, breaching the siege of the Gaza Strip that holds its 1.5 million people in a stranglehold.
Hundreds of Gazans flocked to the southern-most border of the coastal enclave. Many were left waiting on the border for days, denied entry to Egypt.
On the Egyptian side, only a small trickle of aid passed through the dusty hopelessness of northern Sinai through the myriad military checkpoints on the road to Gaza.
There are all the requisite trappings of a difficult border crossing in Rafah. A hundred or so state security officers and policeman command the area — positioned across the gates, pacing the street or simply sprawled out in plastic chairs.
Niqab-clad women sit cross-legged in the inches of shade a makeshift shelter affords them, hawking dates and almonds to the accumulated crowd. Donkeys from the fields of peach trees flanking the border pause to survey the scene, frozen in time.
As midday approaches, the call to prayer booms out from above the small cafe adjacent the crossing. A smaller mosque upstairs caters to the assembly, unable to reach their local halls of worship on the other side in time. The afternoon, evening and night prayers may well pass unattended. From across the margins of Sinai, a call echoes out from the mosques of Gaza’s southernmost city.
A line of taxis stretch down the road, ready for passengers to filter through the crossing, bound for Al-Arish, Cairo and beyond. Two dozen drivers and their hangers-on kill time, waiting. Another cigarette.
The morning seems to have more traffic going in to Gaza than what’s coming out, as cars heaped high with bags hurtle towards the border, screeching to a halt at the last minute before harassed-looking families pile out to begin the process of re-entering the Strip.
Four European journalists tap their heels impatiently in the shaded seating of the cafe. This is their third day at the border. They’re waiting for clearance from Egypt’s mukhabarat (the secret police).
We’re told that five buses are meant to come from Gaza today, carrying 80 people each. By 11.30am, just three families have been allowed through. A man leaving the border approaches the taxi rank, looking disoriented.
Minutes tick by, a slow trickle of families come through, hauling bags behind them. A gaggle of young boys hovering around the exit gate are pushed back by a security officer brandishing his baton. They’re waiting for their payload, Palestinians weighed down with possessions enough to throw a guinea (or shekel) to the boys to help carry them.
A sense of heavy despondency hangs over the scene, normalisation seeping in to the cracks of impossible circumstances.
12.15. An ambulance exits the border. 12.20. A man strides up to the border carrying two LCD screen TVs to take with him to the Strip. 12.30. Another ambulance. We’re told that 200 people passed through from Gaza yesterday, and two small trucks of aid allowed in.
Back in the cafe, time is dragging itself like syrup through the heat. As the low murmurings of the motley gathering recede, the only sounds are the metallic grinding of heavy machinery. Beyond the crossing, several cranes dot the skyline, betraying the presence of the new steel wall constructed by Egypt, penetrating 30 meters underground along the Gaza border.
The wall is a marked escalation in the crackdown on the network of smuggling tunnels that link Gaza to the outside world, bringing in hundreds of much-needed materials banned by Israel under the blockade including cement, A4 paper, notebooks, musical instruments, nuts, dried fruit and many other food items.
By 1.30, some fifty people have come through. All seem to be endowed with family connections in Egypt, moneyed and with a place to go. Two women from Beit Hanoun tell us people are paying upwards of $1000 to secure a place on the shortlist of names allowed to depart from the Strip.
A large man strides through the border, assuming the air of one in a hurry. Taxi-drivers descend on him like flies, competing for the lucrative job to Cairo. We’re told that there are hundreds waiting on the other side.
A pick-up truck piled high with foam mats, plastic chairs, refrigerators, washing machines and gas cookers approaches the border. It turns around, only to reappear half an hour later, and is ushered through the gates.
A truck carrying three Red Crescent SUVs arrives. The vehicles are rolled off the truck, to be inspected before they can enter the holding area beyond the first crossing. Black-clad security officers pace back and forth, poking long-handled mirrors underneath, checking for bombs.
A mother of five passes the gates, marching towards the taxi rank. Her youngest son’s interest is piqued by the two foreigners amongst the throng of Egyptians clamouring for the family’s trip to Cairo. We catch her mother’s eye as she regards the journalists playing hide-and-seek with the boy, unfazed by the scene before him.
“What are you doing here?” she demands. “Why are you taking photos here? Go inside, in there! People are dead! Dead, dead, dead!” she yells, then turns about-face to confront the drivers, paused mid-haggle.
An elderly man is pushed through in a wheelchair by his wife. At 80 years of age, his life spans well beyond the 62 years of Israeli occupation. He has been waiting at the border since 7am this morning.
A boisterous Bedouin, one of the drivers’ throng, cracks a joke about tunnels and is hurriedly hushed up by the police standing nearby. For our benefit, a policeman sternly remarks, “There are no tunnels.”
4.30. Another ambulance out. 4.40. We speak to a young man holding his mother’s purse. They’ve waited six days on the border before being admitted to Egypt. They have no plans to return to Gaza.
One man is arguing on the phone, trying to determine where he will go now he has made it out the other side. He looks up, to see us surveying his outburst. “Al-a’lam sa’ab,” he says with a forlorn smile, “The world is difficult.”
[Bridget Chappell is an Australian activist who was working with the International Solidarity Movement in Palestine. On February 7 she was arrested by Israeli forces.]