JERUSALEM: An online video game launched on Tuesday lets you play the role of a Gaza student who must negotiate a web of Israeli obstacles in order to attend university in the occupied West Bank — but you can’t win.
The game, developed by an Israeli rights group with EU funding, walks players through the restrictions that remain in place despite Israel’s recent decision to allow greater amounts of consumer goods into the Hamas-run enclave.
"We are focusing on the two aspects of the blockade that have not changed and that there is no discussion of changing — exports and freedom of personal movement," says Sari Bashi, the head of the Gisha Legal Centre for Freedom of Movement, which has closely tracked the four-year-old blockade.
"The game shows that the Israeli policy to separate the West Bank and Gaza is entrenched and long-term," she told AFP.
Players begin by choosing characters on the website (www.spg.org.il), either a student, an ice cream manufacturer trying to export to the West Bank, or a man deported to Gaza whose family still lives in the occupied territory.
There are several options, including appealing to the Israeli military, petitioning the supreme court, or traveling via Egypt and Jordan, but in the game all of them lead to failure.
"The way you win is by talking to people and writing letters and taking action. We want people to win in real life," Bashi says.
The game also features links to documents related to the Israeli-imposed restrictions on movement between Gaza and the West Bank — which are 35 km apart at their closest.
Israel and Egypt sealed the territory off from all but basic goods when an Israeli soldier was captured by Gaza insurgents in June 2006 and tightened the sanctions when the Islamist Hamas movement seized power a year later.
This week Israel said it would significantly expand the list of goods allowed into Gaza after weeks of international pressure in the wake of its deadly seizure of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla on May 31.
