March 17, 2003	Monday	Muharram 13, 1424

AL MAWASI: The waves break all along the clean sandy beach and palm trees sway in the Mediterranean breeze. It could be a holiday resort, but to the residents of Al Mawasi this fertile paradise is little more than a prison.

In the rest of Gaza, which provides a base for the most radical militant Palestinian groups, 53 Gazans were killed and 387 were injured during Israeli raids over the past month. But in Al Mawasi there has been virtually no violence for the last two years. Nevertheless, its community is suffering a slow, silent strangulation.

The coastal strip, eight miles long by just over half a mile wide, next to the Egyptian border, has an estimated population of 5,000, but residents say there are double that number. Almost all of them hope for peace and will find encouragement in President George Bush’s comments on Friday that the peace ‘road map’ can help Palestinians and Israelis to ‘abandon old hatreds’ and achieve ‘goals shared by all the parties’.

Anything would be better than the life they lead now: most are forbidden to leave the area and many who do are not allowed back in.

Exports of fruit, vegetables and fish are restricted and workers who had jobs in nearby towns have to choose between working and leaving home. There is electricity for five hours a day and water for one hour. Economic life is all but dead.

People have little money to buy goods, but what little supplies they need are not allowed to cross the military checkpoint without military permission. Meat and milk are rarities and goods such as glass and car parts are not allowed in. Children are educated in shipping containers until the age of 14, when they must leave home to go to secondary school and university.

The harsh life of the Palestinians is in sharp contrast to that of the Israeli settlers of Gush Katif, who live in nearby prosperous enclaves.

Vicky Metcalf, a Cheshire lawyer who advises the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza, said: “The case of Al Mawasi is the most extreme example of the closures placed on the West Bank and Gaza. It’s collective punishment on a grand scale; a classic example of apartheid where a small minority receive state investment and protection while the majority live in enforced poverty.”

The reason for the oppression is not clear. In 2001 a resident murdered a Gush Katif settler, but there has been little violence since, although settlers once destroyed property in Al Mawasi. People often refuse to give their names to reporters for fear of reprisals. They say there is no support in the community for violence against settlers or soldiers.

“If it was about security,” said Metcalf, “then why are international humanitarian agencies refused entry?” The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) supplied Al Mawasi with staple foods, including milk, until the beginning of this year.

According to Genevieve Wills, Gaza director of the WFP, it is not now allowed to supply food, despite weekly requests to the military. Medecins Sans Frontieres, which supplies medicine and assistance, has not been able to enter for over a month.

Claims of the persecution of the residents are supported by the Israeli human rights group, Betselem. Its latest report, “Impossible Life in an Isolated Enclave”, says the people of Al Mawasi, “live in intolerable conditions and are engaged in constant and prolonged struggle to survive... An entire community is imprisoned.”

The nearest that most outsiders can get to Al Mawasi is the Tufah checkpoint, where residents try to re-enter the community. On the left of the approach road is a group of middle-aged men and on the right are middle-aged women with children aged under 12. The women take the children of young women for medical attention which cannot be provided in Al Mawasi (young women are not allowed through).

A loudspeaker summons a group of five men or women to approach the checkpoint, where they are searched by bored Israeli soldiers. They are forbidden to carry anything, so many try to smuggle items in their bulky robes.

When Fatima Najah, 43, attempted to smuggle a bottle of varnish six weeks ago, female soldiers found it and asked the mother of 10 what it was. When she explained, they told her to drink some of it. She refused and two of the soldiers held her and opened her mouth while a third poured in some of the liquid.

She spent the next month in hospital being treated for damage to her vocal chords and stomach.

International agencies believe the harsh policy, which the army says is under review, is designed to force the residents of Al Mawasi to leave. However, the alternatives are not much better, since the whole of Gaza is poor and beset by violence.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.