To Ashkelion, on a local bus, you know - the kind that gets detonated often around here. Not to worry though, or perhaps no sense in worrying. We rode through more of Israel's fine farmlands and lush low grasslands heading south, and at Ashkelion's bus stop, we were offered a fixed price to the "Machsum", the checkpoint as they call it. The sun was dying slowly in the west, us in the late afternoon and arriving perhaps two hours after leaving Tel Aviv, at the main entrance to the Gaza Strip. I was quite shocked by what I saw.

Of course I was expecting what I had seen in the northern half of the West Bank - military vehicles, broken roads, and warzone-style checkpoints; but here, a very permanent looking border crossing greeted us. We dumbly wandered to the throng of Palestinians heading back home for the night, but were redirected by those friendly folks to the foreigner's entrance: a much larger, and totally empty, side of the border checkpoint.

Clean offices and tinted windows greeted us and inside were several young Israelis who gladly processed our passports; going as far, most interesting of all, to give us exit stamps that had "Gaza" printed on them. So am I leaving Israel? What, in effect, is Gaza anyway?
"Why do you want to visit Gaza?" an Israeli soldier asked my travel associate.
"Well you know, you see it on TV so often, time to see it myself!" he said. "Don't you visit Gaza?" he asked the soldier girl, smiling.
"No, never!" she exclaimed, shocked at such a stupid question.
I smiled. It was quite amusing at their concern for us, and yet again perhaps it is a given that they would be so fearful. Their paranoia is valid; yet what indeed do they know of Palestinians but that they are their worst enemy? How, in their context, could they know otherwise? It would be quite difficult at best.

The sun was blinding as we walked through the vehicle inspection corridors and then through a long roadway. At the end, in the late afternoon, in an empty parking lot, stood two Palestinian service taxis. Yes - ripped off indeed. Of course, given the situation, there was little choice in the matter.






In those dying moments of sunlight I saw the ocean of buildings around us. The service taxi weaved deftly through narrow streets as the concrete monoliths closed round, throngs of children played, mounds of garbage, endless storefronts. Romantically referred to as the World's Largest Concentration Camp, Gaza City was packed like Tokyo with people and structures.
More curiously - Palestinian officers at checkpoints. Certainly not Israelis. And more construction everywhere - in the city centre, a large roadway with a park of sorts, but otherwise Gaza City is a seething mass of urbanity and humanity. Upon settling into a hotel room we began to wander around.

Taking a service taxi back to the centre, the prices for everything had dropped to twenty percent of what they were in Israel proper. The city was a maze of narrow streets amongst gridded ones, with so many of those shops selling inconsequential little food and beverage items as one sees so often in developing regions of the world. Groups of young men wandered the streets, often extending their hands in greetings. For what is there for us to fear here? Certainly not the people. Indeed, the Palestinians are nothing short of gracious to visitors who show up on their doorsteps without a tank or automatic weapon in their possession.

We ate shawarmas in the town centre in a mercilessly hot restaurant, then wandered down the main thoroughfare to a small cafe serving shisha. ATMs dotted the sides of banks, payphones seemed to work, lights were on and cars were moving, and people seemed to have the entertainment trappings of at least a small town at their disposal. "So what the fuck is their problem?" my travel associate would quip, "all of this looks like a Palestinian state to me."

If only he had seen the West Bank.



To Cairo



Back