All that happened on June 5, at the Erez checkpost. The sea of people consisted of thousands of men from all over the Gaza Strip, people who had heard on the radio that the closure of two week had been lifted. At dawn they hurried to the checkpost, desperately hoping for a day’s work. At 9:00 when I arrived there, they were already after four five hours of a hopeless waiting. Old and young, most of them unshaven, their financial situation beyond despair. And now they also had to flee from the terror of the jeep. For some time they have believed that the Border Guards are relatively the quickest to shoot – also according to the latest B’Tselem report on shooting in the Territories. but now they have learned that the Border Guards also have quick feet on the gas pedal. The incident took place at the margins of the central issue: Gaza has been closed off for two weeks, no coming or going. And even on that day almost no one managed to leave the accursed place. Before dawn the Israeli contractors came from the north and the workers came from the south, momentarily united in a brotherhood of masters and servants and by a common economic interest. Nothing going. Now one of those allowed to leave must be over 28 years old and everyone needs a red permit and a pink one too. Mainly, every Palestinian needs an Israeli employer who employed over ten employees in the past in order to obtain the work-permit. And thus they stood, crowded and hot, the ragged workers and the sweating masters with their beer-bellies sticking out, their necks and wrists loaded with gold, with cars of the latest make waiting the parking lot. One Israeli contractor arrived in a silver Mercedes with four Israeli flags, no less, posted on it. And everyone was angry. Even if for the masters it was a matter of getting rich and for the workers a matter of sheer survival.

Suddenly one person ran out of the crowd, almost as if possesed. He had received a permit. It has been some time since I have seen such a rush of joy. The man was swallowed up in his contractor’s Subaru van. He will make 40 Shekel [$16.7] today, and that sum means a fortune in Gaza, where this week you could buy a cartoon of tomatoes for eight Shekel.

Among the thousands milling around there were also those who tried to make some profit out of the situation: Local merchants tried to sell a yellowish drink for a penny. "Time’ cigarettes were sold from a mule drawn cart and peanuts out of a rusty bowl. That was the largest slave market I ever saw in my life. It was a shocking combination of power and poverty.

The combination of a show of power and of the humiliating circumstances created a horrifying scene, full of bitterness, a bitterness the likes of which I never saw before, even in Gaza. I tried to listen to one person and immediately dozens others swarmed around me, competing with each other in trying to express their suffering and rage. I listened, the atmosphere heated up and I felt that I am already in real danger. But people here still have something to lose and therefore no one takes any chances.

Soon they will not have anything more to lose and then, even they, the owners of the pink work-permits will become a walking danger to anyone they meet on their paths. "A tyre’, one of them tells me, "if you pressure it too much, it explodes.” And thus they spoke in the line for the work-permits which are not issued by the Labor exchange: I am under 28 and I have five children. What do they want me to do? Either they open [the Strip] for everyone or let them close it for everyone. Everyone is sorry about what happened in Bat Yam. Like one rotten tomato that spoils the whole carton. It happened – a crazy guy had killed and there are crazies among us and among you too. But because of one person? And when one of yours killed seven of us, did we try to punish all the Jews? I work in an abattoir. The abattoir of the Holon religious council. My salary is not so good – 50 Shekel a day. 20 Shekel go for transportation. I leave at 4:00 and return at 7:00. I have five children and for two weeks already there has been no salary. Now I have come, maybe the boss will come to get me. I work through a contractor. But the boss did not come. We have nowhere to go. Write this down. We have nowhere to go. They say that they opened the Strip for the world to see. but they did not open anything. It would be better if they closed it altogether. We are thrown here like dogs. A dog in [Tel Aviv’s] State Square lives better then we. A dog is allowed to walk around all night and we are closed up every night at 8:00. It is still light, but we are treated like the chickens. We are even forbidden to visit a neighbor – from evening until morning".  

Now another person burst into tears inside the crowd that has enclosed me: "I am the father of 13 children. Here is my ID card with all their names. Count them and you will see. Thirteen children. With my mother at home. I worked for six years for Ariel Doran. He lives in Herzliya. A renovation contractor. Now he owes me 4.000 Shekel I can not bring 1.000 Shekel for my children. So what should I do. And you, with your head, go think what will happen. And all because of the elections. They do not want workers from Gaza? Let them close up and go away from here".

The line at the barred window of the Labor Exchange grew smaller. People despaired and turned back. There will be no day’s work there. Some employers still try to work something out: They get together and try to get ten workers each. No luck. One Israeli observer suggests that the Histadrut bosses should be brought here. At least let them see. Even the young man offering tea from a filthy teapot and paper cups is not doing a good business. No one can afford tea now. When the commotion closed in on me, I broke through the enclosure and hurried to the car. The bottled up rage of those men was developing into dangerous proportions. Later, for that entire day, I drove the width and breadth of the Strip, from Erez to Khan Yunis, from Jabalya to Deir al Balah, along with several B’Tselem members. I heard the voices and saw the scenes. It took our hosts full two and a half hours to get from Khan Yunis to Erez, less than one hour’s drive on normal days. There were endless checkposts. with questions and checks of permits and waiting lines. There are no starving people in the streets of the Strip, but the everyday poverty is even poorer and more terrible, even if the Israeli TV reporter says from the inside an army jeep that there was "lively commerce" on the Strip’s streets.

Expressions such as a pressure cooker, a keg og gunpowder, a fire and match which could start a terrible flame, sounded very real. Everyone denounced the murder in Bat Yam and everyone was talking about the coming explosion. They still get flour and rice from UNWRRA, but even Gazans from Jabalya can no longer live on that alone. How longer can a Zaki Kaifu continue like that with his 13 children and his continuing unemployment? We reached his house in Jabalya early in the afternoon. A house? Nonsense. A yard covered with sheet metal. On the filthy concrete floor lay a baby in a makeshift steel crib. A rough army blanket covered the sweating baby. What chances does such an infant have, currently fed with powdered milk from a carton box sent by the European Community? "Action no. 52/91" was written dryly on that European carton, now lying on the floor in Jabalya. His father, Zaki, worked until recently at Ya’akov Mizrachi’s pickles factory in Bat Yam. 40 Shekel per day. 20 Shekel for transportation. Even previously the family never lived in a villa, but with the unemployment of which the end cannot be seen, the despair is even greater. When, if ever, will Zaki be able to return to Ya’akov Mizrachi’s pickles in Bat Yam. And what will happen in the meantime? Garlic is hung up to dry – perhaps for luck as well – on the mouldy wall: and chickens walk around the baby’s crib. He continues his nap. "The government is playing with fire", says Zakl. "The Arab worker is paying the price of the elections".

Later on, Bassam al-Bi?ari, Chairman of the trade unions in Gaza, draws the statistical picture. A young man who presents himself well, sitting In a new offlce In a quiet street in the center of Gaza. The government offices might sometime be located here, someone jokes. Not only the trade unions are located here. On the opposite house there is the construction and housing council. Further up the environmental center and not far from it the French cultural center and the British Council. Bi’ari specifies the damages of the closure: Each day 1.8 million Shekels used to enter the Strip from salaries and sales and were cut off for two weeks. 771 Mercedes cars 111 busses and 3,000 commercial vehicles and vans daily transport the workers from the Strip to Israel. Each Mercedes owner pays 50 Shekel per day as income tax and VAT, a truck pays 40.000 Shekel annually, a van 15.800 Shekel. Now they are all paralyzed but they must continue paying taxes as usual. The Strip transporters pay Israel 350,000 Shekel every day.and for two weeks alreadybthere is nowhere to take the money from. And the damage to agriculture. The price of a box of tomatoes was 30 Shekel until recently. Now the price has dropped to 8 Shekel. Thlrty tonnes of tomatoes have been collected in the greenhouses, without being marketed. How many tomatoes are needed in Gaza asks the trade union secretary. And cucumbers? The price was 11 Shekel per box; now, under he closure, it dropped to 1 Shekel per box. The trade unions distributed 3,000 boxes free of charge. Bi’ari says that the agriculture in the Strip loses 500.000 Shekel per each day of closure.

And the damages caused by the settlers: Bi’ari says that they have burned 250 dunums of wheat fields, 35 greenhouses, 500 citrus trees. eight tonnes of UNWRRA food and two UNWRA cars following the murder of the rabbi from Kfar Darom. The army could have prevented that, Bi’ari says. but according to him, the army wants to delilver a message. Besides our force: you also have to reckon with the settlers’ force – so learn the lesson. "Gaza , like is a box,” the chairman says, picking up the box of tissues from his desk, heavily decorated with gold. "Before 67 It was open on one side and closed on the others. It has been closed on that side and opened on the other. How you are trying to pressure us from all the sides. You have turned us into an experiment of Israeli politics. What more do you want from this poor box? The question is only when the explosion will come, because it will come. You press on the box and press. it goes on shrinking until the explosion.” There was something surrealist in that demonstration with the aid of the gilded box. "Let us now speak about Gaza’s economy. Who can say that there is an economy in Gaza. which has no factory with more than 15 workers. Where else in the world do people pay a Life Tax? That is not income tax, that is a life tax. We pay income tax even in a situation in which we have no income. Once the interrogators told me: You have to pay a tax for the Israeli air you breathe. In Israel, people who earn less than 1,400 Shekel do not pay taxes. Here, even those earning 600 Shekel pay taxes. Why is that? We also have Israeli identity cards, even if they are of another color". He produces a large cardboard board which demonstrates how Israel, in his view, robs the Palestinian worker. Minute details of [Israeli] employers’ tricks and of state exploitation. Israel, for example, deducts social security from the territories’ workers in order to pay for the army reserve service. There is loud laughter in the room. And they also pay the Histadrut 1.5 percent of their incomes as an "organizing tax". but what do they gain from it?

The Gaza sea road is always beautiful, even during closures. Not many come to bathe at the wonderful beach. Two years ago I drove along here in the company of attorney Samir Daher from Khan Yunis, and already then we spoke about the potential of those beaches. Now, again, he is in the car with me and nothing has changed in our conversation, or in his humor. At that time we spoke about the steel rods surrounding the adjacent Ansar 2 camp at the site formerly serving the night train to Cairo. A young soldier at the checkpost asked the driver of our car if he was permitted to carry 11 passengers. He said yes, and the soldier let us pass. Three minutes later we returned to the same soldier and he stopped us in order to ask the same question again. There was something inhuman about that question, the second time in as many minutes, without him having noticed that it was the same car and the same driver. Perhaps his concern for the safety of the passengers in the Gazan van had affected his memory. At Ntazrim B Jewish settlement all the street lights are lit, in the middle of the day. The Gazans in the car titter, that is how you waste your government’s money. Electricity also flows in the new fence surrounding the Kfar Darom Bible and Country Institute, just few paces away from the tent erected in protest against the rabbi’s murder. The first electric fence I have seen in the Territories has been erected here in order to guard the settlers. There was once only the barbed wire, then there were steel posts, and now there are also settlements behind electric fences. An interesting innovation. A picture of a skull and a warning in red, in three languages: "Danger! Hight voltage". Beyond the electric fence a soldier with a yarmulke and two armed settlers walk cozily around. The settlers’ children who came to show solidarity with their comrades at Kfar Darom in the protest tent get back on the bus. That morning stones were thrown by the settlers at cars of Arab workers trying to reach the Erez checkpost. Now the inhabitants of the tent are heavily surrounded by army forces. I am travelling In a Gazan car protected by Israeli soldiers from settlers’ stones. Israel is land of limitless opportunities.

And even today It is impossible to ignore the "Mista’arvim", the soldiers dressed as Arabs. The event took place in the main street of Khan Yunis refugee camp. Last Thursday they shot to death a masked youth armed with an axe. Now, at the scene of the shooting, an eyewitness, Khamis Abu Taher, owner of a stand opposite comes to tell what he saw: Shortly after 7:00 pm five masked youths arrived at the main street. Two of them started writing red grafflti, the color indicating they were members of the Popular Front. One of them dictated to the writers the long list of Intifada martyrs and two stood by, armed with axes, at the street corner, to stop the traffic until the painters had finished their work: Almost a routine. And then four cars stopped at the corner, and the masked youth – not knowing who he was signing to – instructed one of them to park across the street in order to block the traffic. The blue Peugeot 404 did as ordered, but suddenly all four doors opened and out of them came out six men in civilian clothing, one with a white Muslim skullcap and at once started shooting. The youth managed to shout to his comrades, but It was already too late. Said Khalil Magarer, aged 18, was shot in his leg and fell on the sand island separating the two sides of the road. The elderly eyewitness lays down to demonstrate how Sa’id raised his hands above his head while laying wounded. Abu Taher is willing to give a sworn affidavit about what he saw at that point: The soldier came over to Sa’id, leaned over him, and from a distance of several centimeters emptied at least a full magazine into him. Someone in the crowd gathering around us said that it was two magazines, and someone added that Iater another soldier came, checked if Sa’id was dead and shot another round into his body. In any case "he soldiers Immediately dragged the body away, putting it into the Peugeot and went away. Later a Border Guard jeep came by, but the rest of the masked youth had already disappeared. The long message they had writted on the wall has not yet been erased. Authorized military sources said this week that Sa’id was evacuated while still alive to a nearby army base, and only in the course of the medical treatment his death was determined. They also stressed that he had attacked the soldiers with the axe, and only when they felt that they were in real danger did hey shoot, and wound him. Go know. In the meantime, in the refugee camp street, tempers rose. The people accompanying us urged me to leave as quickly as possible. Attorneys Samir Daher and Ahmad al-Gandour from Palestlnlan Lawyers for Human Rights in Khan Yunis later explained in their modest office on the sea road in the city: that accordlng to thelr Investigation, the sequence of events was as that described to me in the street.!

Whlle we sat in their office, an elderly man suddenly burst into the room. Extremely upset, he took all sorts of forms and summons from his pocket and started explaining excitedly. His name was Suleiman Abu Shakir, he was 60 years old and one of his seven sons had been wanted for six months already. Like other relatives of wanted persons, he was harassed daily at the Civil Administration offices, having to sit there from morning to night along with other family members, until they will turn in their loved one. There is, of course, no chance of that. The Civil Administration is denying from time to time that it employs this method, the Attorney General has already warned them against using it, but the world keeps turning. Abu Shakir is especially upset now because his next summons is for Thursday, which is the Id al-Adha holiday. He produces a faded form. "Summoned to the Shin Bet "KHAY" (Khan Yunis). The word "Abu" standardly appears on the form, because all of the Shin Bet interrogators are given the alias "Abu", while "Zaher" was added in handwriting. All of Abu Shakir’s family members are therefore summoned to this Abu Zaher from the Shin Bet on the feast day. A vitally urgent security requirement certainly demands it. Once again they will sit there on the painted plastic benches on the sidewalk opposite the entrance to the Civil Administration offices from morning to evening, and wait, until they are sent home in the evening. Abu Shakir says that that is how it has been going on for six months. Every day he is summoned and therefore he has no chance of finding work. Perspiring, he is more upset than any other person I met that Monday in the Strip. This is what he said, his entire body trembling:

"What is this, aren’t Arabs human beings? Do not Arabs live? Don’t you have holidays? Where is your democracy? For six months I have been sitting at the Civil Administration and everyone sees me. Each and every day. See how we live. For seven months I have not been working and I am a father. By Allah, this is not a life. One night they come to my house and one night not, coming with guns and searching. I am going crazy. I am sixty years old. Let them catch my son, for heaven’s sake, but leave me alone. I am going crazy. From 12:00 I have been waiting to tell you what is in my heart. I told the officer: Open the prison for me and I will go in. Is this life? And now they do not let us enter Israel. They do not let us work. Come see my house, see how I live. There is no justice in this world. Take me and throw me into the sea, so I told the officer". He used to work in Ramat HaSharon, in construction. He wears a black skullcap, his face is unshaven, several of his teeth are missing. "It was never like now. We are no longer living. Now I have to take my sheep and slaughter it there, near the Civil Administration. That will be my holiday".

He has not yet calmed down when suddenly a distinguished man arrives with a green shopping basket in his hands, speaking fine English. He is the principal of a school who has received a scholarship to complete his higher studies in Britain, but the military government will not allow him to travel. He is also so very bitter, but in Oxford English. Later we returned north, to Gaza. Another lawyer and another angry monologue. This time it was attorney Raji Sourani. A distinguished young man, who speaks quietly and slowly: "The situation in the Strip at this moment is exactly like on the eve of the Intifada’s outbreak. which unsurprisingly broke out here. One match now could set fire to everything. The situation has changed here, radically: There is nothing to lose any longer. Call it despair, but it is a despair on both sides. The occupier has lost control and of the measures he employs and the occupied ones have nothing to lose. Perhaps only a real tragedy will attract attention to what is happening here now. Nothing is getting any better. On the contrary. You may say that objectively, each day makes the stiuation worse on every possible level ? military, political, psychological. Everything is getting worse in Gaza".

Sourani continued to etch an incomparingly dark picture about what is happening in his city and a sadness descended in the small room, until suddenly the voice of the muezzin came from an adjacent mosque. The muezzin’s voice grew louder. Souranl s voice grew fainter, until It was no longer possible to follow his words.

Note 1: The Israeli army habitually lies about all its actions in the Territories, but the lies in cases like this are more casual and worse than usual. Such units should be regarded as licensed murderers.