CAIRO: The Gaza Strip has become a place where workers take pictures with anachronistic 200 Sheqel bills (approximately $50), and an entire community drops soldier into mundane telephone conversations to confuse Israeli intelligence.
Wesam Ragad Abu Diab, a Palestinian studying at an Egyptian university, was in Gaza before Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by militants on June 25, until August 12, the single day the Rafah border was opened to thousands of stranded Palestinians on both sides of the border in weeks.
Abu Diab, who lives in Dair El-Balah Camp in Gaza, described the time of his arrival home as the most stable time in Gaza in at least six years, before the Intifada. Days later, after militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier, Israeli troops surrounded Dair El-Balah and began firing rockets and missiles into the camp where 11 died, including five children.
The next day following Hezbollah s kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers forced the IDF to temporarily halt operations in Gaza. However, attacks resumed and according to Abu Diab, Israel attacked any place where there was a possibility the soldiers were there, killing and wounding civilians in the process. They started attacking civilians just to turn them against Hamas, including moving on to attacks in neighboring Al Maghazi Camp, and attacks in the civilian centers of camps.
Abu Diab, however, claims that the opposite happened, that support for Hamas and resistance grew, as residents from at least his hometown were united on the principle that the soldiers be traded for prisoners and not released freely.
Particularly destructive, Abu Diab mentioned new weapons and continuous noise bombs, which he says were strategically timed with the end of the school day when children were walking home and in the early morning hours between 3 and 4 a.m. Human Rights Watch has condemned Israel s use of cluster munitions, and the Palestinian Ministry of Health has found evidence of toxic and radioactive weaponry.
However, Abu Diab feels that the biggest problems Gaza residents are facing are economic. There s no money in the country he says, after U.S. and EU sanctions and bans on money transfers into Gaza have made life very difficult for all, and especially government workers who have not been paid since March. Abu Diab relayed stories of the difficulty he had in getting change and of people asking where he got money. Deals and bartering are replacing monetary exchanges.
Escaping the destruction of his hometown, where he leaves behind his parents and eight siblings, Abu Diab lined up along the Rafah border crossing Saturday, Aug. 12, hoping to return to resume his studies. This day was seen as an opportunity for many desperate to get in and out of the country because of uncertainty pertaining to when the border would be re-opened and whether Israeli troops would return, as well as fear of visas expiring, missing scheduled flights and health concerns. However, with thousands trapped in Palestine, not everyone could cross legally in the single day of the opening and Abu Diab estimates that about 250 to 300 others jumped the barbed-wire fence with him, handing babies and children carefully over the fencing.
Despite these hardships, Abu Diab says that Palestinians are also talking about Lebanon. He himself is actively involved with groups like Cairo to Camps and Li-Beirut, which are currently focused on raising funds and awareness for Lebanon. He supports these groups, especially when they attract foreigners, because he feels it to be an effective form of resistance: holding a gun and shooting is not the only form of resistance. He claims that the Palestinians want to unite the Palestinian-Lebanese causes but it is the politicians who do not. At the same time, he feels that Palestinians are isolated and neglected by the international community … [after Lebanon] you just see the news written across the bottom of the screen about Palestinians dying.
Dr. Samir Gathas, director of the Maqdis Strategic Study Center in Gaza (and opening now in Egypt) is more pessimistic about the Lebanon s effects. Citing the high Palestinian death toll in Gaza since the beginning of Hezbollah s initiative, Gathas believes that if Nasrallah was intending to decrease the attacks into Palestine, he has failed. Israel has the capacity to open two fronts … they continue to kill, capture, injure, destroy and invade, including their latest kidnapping of prominent, and moderate, Deputy Prime Minister Nasser Shaer.
Gathas refers to an equally important indirect effect of the latest Lebanese War: Israel after experiencing Hezbollah rockets will be more determined to eliminate Palestinian [arms]. Furthermore, he believes that any Israeli strategy will be stronger towards the Palestinians than it was towards Hezbollah, due to closer proximity and independence from outside support. Israel has learned lessons from Hezbollah.
In contrast to Abu Diab, Gathas perceives the political crisis as the biggest concern, which if solved would allow the other pieces to fall into place. He worries that Hamas does not have a political program or agenda to struggle against Israel. Gathas also worries about the proliferation of resistance organizations such as the new Holy Jihad Brigades, which kidnapped the Fox News reporters.
