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July 30th, 2021 
Awake Goy After years of intermittent closures and a whole year of almost continuous closure, Egypt declared last February that the Rafah Crossing between Egypt and Gaza would open “permanently.”
Experience has shown that when we talk about “permanent” regarding Gaza, we usually think of unpredictability.
Visiting Gaza is taking a gamble; the permanent opening could change overnight and one will find themselves stranded for weeks, if not months.
For most of us expat Palestinians, who hadn’t seen our loved ones for years, this is possibly as good as it gets– now or never.
I couldn’t shake off the terrifying notion that, unless I take the gamble here and now, many of those whom I cherish in Gaza may not be walking the earth next time I have another chance to visit. In the course of 15 years of my absence, I lost many dear ones.
So I decided to go at the end of May 2021.
The Sinai Paradox
Gaza has no airport or seaport. The only outlet to the world is the Rafah crossing with Egypt. So, the journey usually starts in Egypt. And border control begins at the Suez Canal, not the Gaza border (which is 200 km further east).
Most travelers arrive the night before to be first in line at El-Ferdan ferry on the Suez Canal near the city of Ismailia. The Egyptian army’s checkpoint opens at 8 a.m., or sometimes 9 a.m., depending on the officer’s mood and the security situation.
One by one, the vehicles and passengers are checked and then allowed to wait in the car park by the ferry entrance. Once all the vehicles are checked – possibly around midday, they are transferred together to the other side of the Suez Canal on the ferry.
Before crossing you get thoroughly and obnoxiously checked. The list of banned items is extensive and often absurd. Travelers to Gaza are not allowed to bring most types of electronics: cameras, computer external hard drives, bluetooth devices, and power banks. Even any clothes with military hue; dark green or sand yellow. Personal laptops and phones must be charged and ready to be checked, otherwise they will be confiscated. Duplicate items, more than two, aren’t allowed; the ‘surplus’ is usually taken away. The pretext is always security, but often escapes logic and common sense.
I was informed by other travelers that confiscated items are burnt in a pit, while others – especially the small but pricey ones like watches and phones – disappear into the dark pockets of the army recruits and officers. Should you protest, you run the risk of being banned from continuing your journey. If you’re lucky, a sympathetic army officer is willing to turn a blind eye. I saw the pit where they dumped the items. For the most part, they were cigarettes, perfume bottles, and some electronic toys. They almost took away a bluetooth watch that I bought for my dad. I convinced the clueless recruit it was only a toy watch for a child, and he believed me! Though there was a far more intense argument between the Egyptian army commander and a Palestinian traveler from Belgium over, I think, a couple of extra iphones he had (as gifts to family). The army wanted to confiscate them, and that started a massive argument which led to the phones being confiscated, and the poor man being denied permission to continue to Gaza.
“Elnahardah hamna’ak torouh filistin. Dah qarari ana, qarari ana!” the commander shouted at the man after they pulled him aside, as if he’d committed a crime.
Literally: “Today, I prevent you from going to Palestine. That’s MY decision…my decision!”
Checking suitcases is humiliating and infuriating. Bags are thrown on the sandy ground, opened aggressively, and the contents are tossed around carelessly.
“It’s hard to believe that the army that spent millions of dollars on weapons couldn’t afford to dignify travelers with a table to put the suitcases on,” one traveler commented.
A second traveler sarcastically replied: “Probably because tables are the work of the devil, do you really want to go to hell?”
“Hell, you say? Look around you!” the first traveler half-heartedly answered.
Being the devil’s advocate, those soldiers work under less than ideal conditions. They cook all day under the scorching Egyptian sun and have to stay on full alert because of the terrorist threats in Sinai.
The combination of an authority-disrespecting and frustrated Palestinian with an exhausted and stressed Egyptian recruit can be like the interaction of fuel and fire. Arguments sometimes result in the traveler being banned from heading to Gaza. Other times, an upset army recruit would – childishly – hold up an entire queue of cars just because a driver angered him.
After a while of fuming rage and frustration, I felt it was probably necessary to see the comical side in the situation in order to stay calm. After all, the security procedures were utterly ridiculous and the young recruits’ lack of basic mannerisms was so upsetting– it was in fact hilarious. You may call it a defensive mechanism that stops you from going insane.
Crossing the Suez Canal
Having crossed the Suez Canal along with 50 other vehicles carrying Palestinian travellers around midday, we were soon escorted by army vehicles to “secure us,” apparently, though ironically they treated all of us like potential suspects. But the hardest part– the ferry checking– was behind us. Or so we thought.
It is worth noting that Egyptian nationals usually cross the Suez Canal through a tunnel, which only takes minutes. Before the so-called war on terror in the Sinai, people – Egyptians and otherwise – would use the Al-Salam bridge to cross to the other side. It took five minutes then. Nowadays, the bridge is closed until further notice.
The ferry procedures allow the Egyptian army to have tighter control over the whereabouts of non-Egyptians, Palestinians specifically. But the mechanisms by which the ferry is operated appear as if they were designed specifically to make Palestinian lives a lot harder.
Hearing me huffing and puffing, other travelers said: “Do you think this is bad? You should’ve tried going to Gaza last year, it was hell. Some of us had to wait for two or three days only to cross the Suez Canal.”
There was some insinuation that I was so long gone that I had lost my Palestinian stamina! As if you qualify as a true Palestinian only if you’re crushed at every corner.
They weren’t far off from the truth, though. It was clear that having lived many years in the United Kingdom has changed my worldview and reduced my ability to handle utterly bizarre and arduous situations. But nothing is lost. What you grow up with rarely disappears, it just takes a back seat when unneeded.
It didn’t take long after the Suez to switch back to the Palestinian mindset, automatically engaging in a high level of fight-or-flight considerations that I thought no longer existed. Disturbingly, it was comforting to know ‘you still had it.’
It doesn’t matter if you hold a foreign passport, as I do. Once in the Sinai desert heading for Gaza, you’re stripped down to your basic components. In terms of your rights and psychological state, you are back to your primordial Palestinianism.
Not over yet
Northern Sinai is a restricted military zone. The Egyptian army has been involved in bone-breaking military operations against Daesh for years. Luckily, the worst is no more, but many of the security precautions still stand.
Army checkpoints and barracks are everywhere. We were stopped and our passports checked at least 10 times, sometimes for 20 minutes or more. As a result, we assumed our chances of making it to Gaza that same day were slim.
As we arrived at the second major checkpoint, el-maydaan, around 3 p.m., just outside the city of al-Arish, roughly 50 km from the Gaza border, an army officer informed us that for security reasons not only were we not allowed to continue to the border that day, but worse, we can’t even enter al-Arish to spend the night there.
We were literally in the middle of nowhere. The only living beings in sight were us, the army, and some scattered desert plants.
“Are you expecting us to spend the night here?” a woman angrily asked the officer.
He looked away and said nothing.
I walked up to him and said, “So do you think it’s doable for us, the women and children, just to crash here in the middle of the desert?”
“I can’t help it. Orders,” he answered.
“Give me the damn passport, I’m heading back to Cairo,” I said to him, trying not to explode in his face, partly because I’d had my fair share of ‘explosions’ since the moment we’d got to the Suez Canal and I was finally overtaken by a sense of dull apathy, and partly because I thought it wasn’t his fault. Orders, he said!
My aunt, who was my travel companion, coming from Saudi Arabia, went into panic mode. “I can’t sleep here, it’s dangerous… it’s deadly humiliating,” she said in a trembling voice.
Suddenly, orders no longer mattered. The same officer said to the angry crowd, “Well, let’s search your luggage quickly and you’ll be allowed into al-Arish.” And so it happened.
He had been standing near us all along, I didn’t see him receive new orders. A personal gesture, or possibly a “dick move to begin with,” as bluntly pointed out by our Egyptian driver? I don’t know.
Being allowed to continue to al-Arish was a relief. It felt like a win. But in retrospect, it was a typical state of low expectations where even the slightest act of kindness, much less facilitation, means or matters more than it should.
Almost there…
The next morning, we headed from al-Arish, which resembled Gaza more than it did an Egyptian town, to Gaza. Except this time, having had some sleep, things appeared more grounded in reality as opposed to the 24 hours of surrealism that preceded.
But, hold on! There’s still a notorious checkpoint, dubbed kameen el-reissa (al-Reissa is Ambush – the Egyptian term for checkpoint).
Surprisingly, although we found ourselves back to the no-table dusty ground, the checking this time was somewhat gentle and the recruits were civil and more relaxed. It took us only an hour to be on our way, finally heading to Gaza.
As we approached the border, Egypt’s war on terrorism became much clearer. For miles, almost every house and structure on the sides of the road, particularly in the bedouin town of Sheikh Zuweid (a few kilometres after al-Arish) all the way to the Egyptian city of Rafah right on the border with Gaza, were either completely bulldozed or bombed. What was left standing was riddled with bullet holes. When I was there 15 years ago, this area was home to a vibrant and very hospitable community.
But, now that the Egyptian army allegedly cleansed the area of terrorists, residents started coming back. You can see new structures being constructed. That’s good news for Gaza as well, as it means fewer restrictions on travelers.
In Gaza at Last
For a mile as we approached the border with Gaza, tens if not hundreds of Egyptian trucks and trailers carrying humanitarian aids queued waiting their turn to enter the besieged Gaza Strip. There was also a large convoy of construction vehicles ready to enter the Strip to take part in the post-war cleaning efforts, and possibly as promised by Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, reconstruction. It was clear that a drastic change in Cairo’s approach to Gaza, and Hamas in particular, was materializing. The Egyptian goals and agendas are still open to speculations, nevertheless.
Inside the Egyptian side of the border, it was the usual chaos, almost the same style I experienced 15 years ago.
The simple act of checking your passport is a chore. You queue for at least an hour – two hours in my case – drenched in sweat and trying to keep your knees from collapsing, to get to the passport control. Meanwhile, in a school-like manner, an officer would shout at people and threaten to shut down the queue if they don’t stop making noise.
Palestinians with foreign passports are left to the end for further security checks. Since we don’t carry Palestinian passports, we’re required to prove we are originally from Gaza. A Gaza ID is ideal. Otherwise, you won’t be allowed in.
A Palestinian-American woman and her son had to wait for hours for her uncle inside Gaza to email her a copy of his ID card so she could prove she had direct family members in the Strip. All she could do was to bicker in broken Arabic with the Egyptian officers, frustrated over the chaos and inhumane treatment. All the bureaucracy was completely outside her frame of reference.
She was still inside the Egyptian hall as we headed to the Palestinian side of the border. I don’t know if she was allowed in.
The Palestinian side of the border is stunningly different: the building is squeaky clean, modern, and air-conditioned. They even have free wifi. The Hamas-PA officers are particularly well-dressed, polite, and friendly. We were into the hall and out into Gaza within 20 minutes, as opposed to 6 hours at the Egyptian side.
Seeing that my British passport was decorated with “the state of Palestine” stamp put a smile on my face. As cynical as it was, it was reassuring, a posture of defiance that made me very proud.
Behind the border stood the Gaza Strip. It was a familiar scene, but very different. After 15 years of absence, I felt I was here only yesterday, but simultaneously it seemed like a very long time ago. This clash between familiarity and estrangement was to continue to define much of my trip in the besieged Gaza.
I will see you SOON, I told my father over the phone.
Emad Moussa will provide an account of his time inside Gaza in about a week. –Ed.
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