Meet Me in Gaza (29 page)

In 1917 Britain had three wartime objectives relating to Palestine: to maintain its maritime supremacy; to preserve the balance of power in Europe; and to maintain security within Egypt, India and the Persian Gulf to its own advantage. The British government decided this latter objective would be best achieved by capturing Jerusalem, defeating the Ottoman forces in Mesopotamia and the Arabian peninsula and driving them out of the region, then dividing it between British- and French-administered territories. But first, the British had to conquer Gaza, an Ottoman stronghold, from where, like so many foreign belligerents before them, the Turks dominated the ancient Mediterranean coastal route from Syria to Egypt.

For the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (or EEF – though it was under British military command), the 1917 battles for Gaza were, in the words of one young British soldier, ‘a nightmare of interminable marching, thirst and tiredness’. Gaza and the surrounding area were ideal defensive territory for the Turks. The Mediterranean Sea, sandy hills, and the rise of the city surrounded by hollows of orchards with impenetrable thickets of prickly pears, were formidable natural barriers. The Ottomans had also built trenches. During the first battle for Gaza, on 26 March, the EEF suffered 4,000 casualties, compared to the Ottomans’ 2,500. A Turkish aircraft apparently dropped a message bragging: ‘You beat us at communiqués, but we beat you at Gaza!’

The second battle, three weeks later, was also a bloody disaster for the young, pale-skinned British soldiers, who were exhausted by the heat, crying out for water and fighting on sand. The Turks enjoyed the advantage of holding fertile northern Gaza, while the Allies occupied the eastern edge of the Sinai. As they advanced north towards Gaza, the EEF were also laying down railway tracks to transport military goods, and vital water supplies.

On 1 November, during the third battle for Gaza, the EEF under General Edmund Allenby pounded the Strip from air, land and sea. The Ottoman forces were finally overwhelmed and beaten into retreat. The EEF encountered scant resistance around Gaza City and when they entered, found it empty and smashed: ‘Here and there a dark face peeped stealthily from a doorway, but apart from the troops hurrying through, [Gaza] was a place of desolation.’
⁵⁵

Some 13,000 EEF soldiers were killed in the three battles for Gaza, most of them young men, far from the reach of their families, whose descendants cannot tend to their graves and leave flowers or sweet-smelling herbs, or even just sit here quietly in the Gaza spring sunshine. The cemetery seems completely deserted, the silence is serene.

I wander slowly up one line of graves, and down another, stooping to examine the engravings and names of a few of the men buried here:

Lieutenant S.J. Rowland, of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, died on 2 November 1917

Private H. McLean, of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, killed on 20 April 1917, age 27

Private R. Cochrane, of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, killed on 16 July, age 19

Lance Corporal A. Love, of the Highland Light Infantry, killed on 8 August

‘A. Love’ – what a name! I stoop in front of Love’s grave, where small bright flowers are growing. What was he like, this young Scottish man? I wonder whether he had just left home, wherever his home was. I wonder too, how old he was, and whether he had ever drunk whisky, smoked a cigarette or made love before he died here in the pounding midsummer heat of Gaza. I wonder what his Christian name was and whether he really understood what he was doing here, the true scale of this war. What was it like for him, arriving here in the Middle East, the fierce Gaza sun on his pale Scottish skin, the sea breeze ruffling his hair and maybe the shadow of a moustache brushing across his upper lip? Was he excited to be on the Eastern Front, amid the dark-skinned Arabs? Did he miss a girlfriend or his mum? Maybe he was terrified and didn’t want to be here at all.

The carnage of the First World War, as Jawdat al-Khoudari pointed out to me, dwarfed all subsequent battles in Gaza’s recent history. But this cemetery doesn’t feel morbid, just a reflective space where I could happily linger all day, thinking about all kinds of beginnings and endings. I sit down on the grass; it feels soft and almost warm. In a strange way it is the perfect place to be, before I say goodbye.

After a while, I gather myself together, consciously pushing my thoughts into the present as I meander back across the springy grass towards the waiting taxi. Then I notice someone – a man dressed like a gardener and carrying a hoe – walking towards me.

‘
Marhaba
,’ he says.

Muhammad Awaja is the keeper of this cemetery in Zuweida. He has wind-roughened skin and a sense of quiet about him, like a man who spends most of his time working outside, with his hands in the earth.

‘Would you like to drink coffee?’ he asks.

‘Yes, please.’

Muhammad leads me to one side of the cemetery and offers me a stool beneath the shade of an olive tree, one of the old kind, its broad trunk supporting a brim of branches. His small house is just nearby, nestled beside a corner of the cemetery. As we are talking his wife brings us coffee, then sits down with us too. Her name is Widad.

‘There are 734 men buried here,’ says Muhammad. ‘I know every one of them. Five hundred and ninety-three are British, many from Scotlanda. There are also Indians, Algerians, British Jews and seven Unknowns.’
⁵⁶

He has worked and lived here since 1983. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission pays his salary and Muhammad says that he and his family have no desire to leave. Neither do I. But the taxi driver is waiting, so when I’ve finished my coffee, I reluctantly stand to go.

‘Can you sign the visitors book?’ he asks.

I say it would be a pleasure and he goes to fetch it.

It is a large hardback book with a satisfying weight. When I open it, I see there have been just fifteen entries since November 1999, when an Israeli from Tel Aviv with an illegible name wrote in English: ‘Very nicely kept. Very impressive.’ I add my name to the meagre list, thanking Muhammad for the work he does here.

‘Why have you stayed here for so long?’ I ask.

I know the house and salary must both be incentives but even so he’s clearly devoted to this place.

Muhammad thinks about that for a long, sunny moment. Then says simply: ‘
Ihtiram
’. Respect.

I left Gaza at the beginning of April 2009. The Israeli immigration police officer who had told me to leave the Strip within a month was waiting for me at Erez. He detained me for hours, repeated that he would not allow me back inside Gaza, then permitted me to enter Israel just in time to catch my plane to London at Ben Gurion airport. He gave me a one-day Israeli visa, to make sure I got on the plane. But he neither frightened nor intimidated me; I had already won my own battle.

At the airport, I was thoroughly searched, as I expected to be. The officer conducting the search asked me why I had been in Gaza.

‘Weren’t you frightened of being inside that place?’ she asked.

‘Only when your military were bombing Gaza.’

‘But
they
want to kill us.’

‘That’s what people in Gaza say about
you
.’

‘We don’t want to kill them – but sometimes we have to,’ she said.

I flew to London, spent a few weeks back in Scotland and then moved to southern Spain for the summer, where I walked in the mountains, thought about Gaza a lot and began to write this book.

At the end of the summer I returned to Edinburgh, and rented a small flat beside the sea at Portobello. By this time Niveen was also living in the UK, with her daughter, and hoping her son could join them. She was happy to be in Britain, but in spite of everything, she missed Gaza. She told me the Smoothie had made it to Sweden – of course – and was doing very well for himself.

Another year passed, as it does, and then out of the blue I received a call from Shadi – to say that he had finally managed to cross into Egypt and would be spending a few weeks in Ireland as the guest of an Irish human rights group. I met up with him in a crowded downtown Dublin bar a week later. Shadi was shining. We drank a lot of beer, stood out on the street and smoked masses of cigarettes, and listened to raucous live music. By the time the bars closed, I was coming back to Gaza, this time via Egypt.

Here on the slopes of hills, facing the dusk and the cannon of time

Close to the gardens of broken shadows,

We do what prisoners do,

And what the jobless do:

We cultivate hope. […]

From ‘Under Siege’ by Mahmoud Darwish

The bus from Cairo to al-Arish, near the southern Gaza border, is full. Pilgrims are returning from Mecca. The man in the ticket office says that I have to take a different bus, to a city called Ismailiya – some 125 miles from my intended destination – and change there instead. At Ismailiya bus station two young students, both called Muhammad, befriend me and we share a rattling public taxi to al-Arish. The Muhammads get out first, refuse to let me pay my share and tell the taxi driver to look after me. At al-Arish bus station, it takes less than five minutes to find a taxi driver who agrees to take me to the Rafah border crossing – and completely rips me off. I don’t really care. After eighteen months away, I am almost back inside Gaza.

‘Why you going to Gaza?’ asks Amer, the taxi driver, as he takes one hand off the steering wheel to light the cigarette clamped between his dry lips. We’re bombing along the highway towards Rafah, surrounded by bleached desert. Amer has strung trinkets from his driving mirror and they swing wildly as my seat smacks the suspension.

‘I used to live in Gaza, I’m just going back to see my old friends.’

He nods but makes no comment. The fifth or sixth makeshift checkpoint looms into view. Another posse of bored Egyptian officers who want to gather round and inspect my passport. After a couple of minutes they wave us on. As Amer pulls away, the bald tires skid, immersing us in a cloud of gritty dust.

‘Is it busy at the Rafah crossing?’ I ask him.

He offers me a grin through broken, stained teeth.

‘Not really. Not like a real border – it’s … you know, half-open.’

I have no idea what to expect. But when we pull up outside the Rafah crossing, it all looks very quiet. A few Bedouin taxi drivers are loitering near the entrance, touting for trade. About a dozen people have sought the only available shade, a small tatty café with an overhanging tarp. Their bags and suitcases lie strewn around a tree stump. They must be Gazans: no one else would be here.

Amer hoicks my suitcase out of the boot and dumps it on the ground. He’s in a hurry now. I pay him, then stand for a moment next to the imprint of his taxi tyres, weary, thirsty, dazed. I arrived in Cairo at midnight last night. Now it is almost midday and the sun is pulsing dry white heat. I need water and shade. I hand my passport to an Egyptian officer at the entrance gate to the Rafah crossing, expecting to wait at least a few hours. But my name is called even before I’ve made my way to the café. The officer makes one swift phone call and waves me through into the main terminal building.

The Rafah crossing departure hall is huge and almost empty. Just a handful of people are perched on rows of nailed-down plastic seats, the kind you find in fast-food restaurants. A uniformed Egyptian behind a glass screen beckons me forward, takes my passport and politely asks me to wait. I sit down and start rolling a cigarette. The first drag makes me feel quite light-headed. As I smoke, I watch the Egyptian behind the screen frowning as he picks up passports and puts them down again until they are spread around him like spilt blue ink. Gazans walk up to the screen to speak to him. I hear them asking:
Ya Allah
– when will they finally be allowed to cross?

A woman plonks herself down beside me with a heavy sigh.

‘Five hours, I’ve been here,’ she says. ‘They are so rude, these Egyptians; all they say is wait, wait … and I’ve got my kids with me.’

She points at her three kids, skidding across the floor, which is strewn with sweet wrappers, empty plastic cups and mushy cigarette dog-ends.

‘Where do you live?’ I ask her.

‘The UAE. This is the first time I have visited my family in six years, you know – I just want to spend one month with them.’ She shakes her head, heaves herself back out of the plastic chair and goes in pursuit of her kids.

After an hour, I walk up to the screen. The same man is there, still picking up passports. He looks up.

‘I am sorry – five minutes, please.’

After another hour, I go up to him again.

‘Please: another five minutes,’ he says.

In these two and half hours, a mere handful of people have been processed. Half a dozen uniformed officers have appeared behind the same screen, but have completely ignored us all. Most of the Gazans are now slumped in their seats. I’d forgotten how much of their lives is spent waiting.

Eventually, my name is called. The same officer, his frown now a crevasse between overgrown grey eyebrows, hands me my stamped passport.