CAIRO: Nearly three months after celebrations of the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak resonated in Gaza, residents of the Strip are becoming less optimistic that the news could mean an end to the siege.
For some Gazans, the resignation of Mubarak brought in hope for the liberation of Palestine from Israel.
“Many of us felt that there is a part of Palestine liberated,” recalled Mohamed Fayyad, a Palestinian who spoke to Daily News Egypt from Gaza.
“There was this euphoria across Gaza after [Mubarak] stepped down. We saw Mubarak as one of the reasons why Gaza lived under siege which was tightened after Al-Qeddesine Church blast in Alexandria,” said Fayyad.
However, two months after Mubarak’s ouster, violence flared between Israel and Hamas.
Following Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, Hamas fired an anti-tank rocket across the border at an Israeli school bus early April, to which Israel retaliated with air and ground strikes, killing 19 Palestinians.
“The Palestinian people’s expectations from the Egyptian revolt are fading away by time; they were bigger in the moments immediately following the military council taking power,” said Fares Akram, a journalist based in Gaza.
“We don’t expect military intervention from Egypt. We need Egypt to [facilitate] the movement of people through the Rafah crossing and put more pressure on the Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, to reconcile,” he added.
Other Gazans are hoping for a pan Arab movement lead by Egypt to take over the Palestinian territory again after years of occupation by the Zionist regime.
Mohammed Fayyad explained that living with barely any electricity, controlled borders by Israel and a shutdown of the Rafah borders by the Egyptian authorities is nothing short of living in a prison.
“We can’t see any serious steps towards a solution to our living conditions,” he said.
Fayyad, who holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering, yet works as a farmer, explained that despite hope for a strong Egyptian comeback, “the most important thing is the opening of the Rafah border to facilitate trade.”
“About 30 percent are only employed in government jobs, the rest are unemployed, thus people have to get their food from the donations we receive,” he said.
For other Palestinians, happy endings seem far-fetched, however that’s what they live to see, according to Fadi Abu Sada, a journalist located in Bethlehem, the West Bank.
“But they know it will take time, and they know that the Egyptian-Palestinian relation will be officially with the PA not with Hamas,” he said.
Jaber Fayyad, a medical student at Cairo University, explained that Gazans expect things to dramatically improve. “Worst case scenarios will still be better than Mubarak’s era,” he said.
In December 2008, Israel launched operation “Cast Lead” on Gaza killing more than 1,400 Palestinians. Around 5,300 remain permanently wounded and more than 50,000 people displaced according to Goldstone’s report.
The 2009 attacks destroyed the coastal city’s infrastructure such as water treatment and electrical plants, farms and factories, schools, mosques and municipal buildings which further worsened living conditions.
Gaza has been under a blockade that is suffocating daily life, imposed by Egypt and Israel ever since Hamas took over the Strip in 2007.
The reason behind the tightened regulations was Mubarak’s concern over the Hamas takeover which could spill over to Egypt and inspire an Islamists takeover.
Now, leading Egyptian politicians who are planning to run for president have used a harsher tone towards Israel.
Mohammed ElBaradei, a presidential candidate and a former International Atomic Energy Agency head, said that if Israel attacked Gaza during his tenure, he would declare war.
Israel then has expressed its “worry” following Egypt’s construction freeze late March of an underground steel wall along the Rafah border that was used to smuggle goods into Gaza through tunnels.
