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Why I didn't get to Gaza - a Cairo saga

By Ron Witton - posted Thursday, 14 January 2010


The GFM participants also heard directly from those who made it to Gaza of the hardship faced daily by Gaza’s civilian population. They reported on their visits to children’s trauma centres where children draw horrendous images of people with bleeding and blasted bodies, images drawn from their actual experience and often reflecting the fate of immediate family members.

GFM participants saw for themselves that the Israeli navy has moved in so close to the Gaza shore that it has effectively prevented any fishing by Gaza’s fishing fleet. Fish has been a traditional part of Gazan’s diet. The effect of blockading Gaza’s fishing grounds has been to significantly reduce a key source of vitamin D provided through fish. Health workers are seeing increasing vitamin D deficiency-related diseases including an increased prevalence of osteoporosis, rickets and bone fragility. Many Gazans expressed their fear of starvation. They told how most of the food currently available in Gaza comes through tunnels that have been built under the Egyptian border. Egypt’s current plans, in collaboration with Israel and the US, to build a steel wall reaching some 30 metres underground, to block these tunnels, will result in increased widespread malnutrition and perhaps even starvation.

GFM participants expressed concern that the actions by Israel, Egypt and the West, which aimed to weaken the popularly-elected Hamas government, have ironically weakened the links of Gaza’s non-governmental organisations to organisations abroad, and that this has in fact strengthened Hamas’ grip over the Gaza population.

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GFM participants who managed to get to Gaza were disturbed by the patriarchal nature of Hamas’ Islamist ideology, and that, again ironically, the international blockade of Gaza has led to the marginalisation and weakening of Gaza’s women’s organisations which had been developing strong links to non-governmental organisations throughout the world. Indeed, the GFM participants who succeeded in reaching Gaza stated that members of Gaza’s women’s organisations expressed profound gratitude in being able to link up with people abroad, and stated that such opportunities are becoming increasingly rare.

In summary, the Egyptian government through its own actions, ironically succeeded in providing some 1,300 committed activists from some 43 countries with an opportunity to plan international actions that will, over the next year and beyond, be of more practical use to the people of Gaza, and the Palestinian people in general, than would have been the case had we merely participated in the largely symbolic march on December 31 in Gaza.

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About the Author

Dr Ron Witton is a Senior Fellow in the Faculty of Law, University of Wollongong.

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